The Play Company Begins NY Premiere of THE GOLDEN DRAGON Tonight

The New York premiere of THE GOLDEN DRAGON, presented by the OBIE Award-winning The Play Company (WORKING ON A SPECIAL DAY, INVASION!), is written by acclaimed German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig and translated by David Tushingham. THE GOLDEN DRAGON is directed by Ed Sylvanus Iskandar (THESE SEVEN SICKNESSES, RESTORATION COMEDY), renowned for whimsical invite-only theater company, Exit, Pursued by a Bear. THE GOLDEN DRAGON will be performed at The New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street in the West Village) from tonight, May 8th through Sunday, June 9th, 2013. The press opening is Wednesday, May 15th.

In a tiny Asian take-out, a kitchen worker's toothache leads to a botched extraction, blazing a trail of intrigue through the dining room and out into the world beyond. Darkly hilarious and sweepingly global, THE GOLDEN DRAGON paints a surreal and haunting portrait of migration and human connection as five actors create a kaleidoscope of characters - from the restaurant's employees, patrons and neighbors, to the insects at their feet.

THE GOLDEN DRAGON reunites Mr. Schimmelpfennig, one of Europe's most-produced and renowned playwrights, with The Play Company, who produced the New York premiere of his play ARABIAN NIGHT (also translated by Mr. Tushingham) in 2006.

The cast of THE GOLDEN DRAGON features Noah Galvin (OUR TOWN at Barrow St. Theatre, YOSEMITE at Rattlestick, BURNT PART BOYS at Playwrights Horizons), Peter Kim (THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE on Broadway, AMERICAN HWANGAP for PlayCo/Ma-Yi, DURANGO at The Public and regionally), K.K. Moggie (GRACE at MCC, THE GOLDEN DRAGON at Studio Theatre, DC), Socorro Santiago (THE BACCHAE on Broadway; L'ILLUSION at NYTW, ALMA Award for TV's "All My Children") and Stephen Duff Webber (the Siti Company's RADIO MACBETH, WAR OF THE WORLDS, etc.).

THE GOLDEN DRAGON has set design by Mimi Lien, costume design by Loren Shaw, lighting design by Nicole Pearce, and sound design by Katie Down. Erica Fae is the movement director.

Roland Schimmelpfennig's work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He made his New York debut in 2006 with a production of his play ARABIAN NIGHT, produced by The Play Company. He first worked as a freelance journalist and author in Istanbul before training as a theatre director at Munich's Otto Falkenberg School in 1990. He then became an assistant director and later a member of the artistic team at Munich's Kammerspiele. Mr. Schimmelpfennig was dramaturg and author at the Berlin Schaubühne and then resident playwright at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In 2010, Schimmelpfennig was awarded the Mühlheimer Dramatists Award for his play THE GOLDEN DRAGON. The play premiered at the Burgtheater Vienna last season and has since received more than 30 productions worldwide. He just finished a commission for the Tokyo National Theater and the Burgtheater in Vienna. Schimmelpfennig is the recipient of the highest Playwriting Award in Germany, the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Prize, to honor his entire Oeuvre.

An Off-Broadway company dedicated to advancing an international view of contemporary playwriting, The Play Company links NYC artists and audiences to a whole world of plays and places American work in a global context, creating unusual, ambitious work that reflects and responds to the issues and events that shape our time. The Play Company most recently presented (in collaboration with Mexico City-based Por Piedad Teatro) the U.S. premiere of WORKING ON A SPECIAL DAY, inspired by Ettore Scola's Una Giornata Particolare. Other recent productions include the OBIE Award-winning U.S. premiere of Jonas Hassen Khemiri's INVASION! (Sweden), the New York premiere of Marius von Mayenburg's THE UGLY ONE (Germany), the American premiere of Toshiki Okada's ENJOY (Japan), and the world premiere of Eliza Clark's EDGEWISE (U.S.). Past productions include the NY premiere of Lloyd Suh's AMERICAN HWANGAP (U.S.), the NY premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennig's ARABIAN NIGHT (Germany); the U.S. premieres of Przemyslaw Wojcieszek's MADE IN POLAND (Poland); Robert Farquhar's BAD JAZZ (England), Simon Farquhar's RAINBOW KISS (Scotland), Vijay Tendulkar's SAKHARAM BINDER (India); Yoji Sakate's THE ATTIC (Japan); and The Presnyakov Brothers' TERRORISM (Russia); as well as world premieres of the American plays SMASHING by Brooke Berman and HIGH DIVE by Leslie Ayvazian. The Play Company received a 2007 OBIE Award for its "unique contribution to the theatre community." PlayCo is under the guidance of Kate Loewald, Founding Producer, and Lauren Weigel, Executive Producer.

Running time is approximately 75 minutes (no intermission).

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