VIGIL, Starring Stenborg and Gets, Plays Off-Broadway's DR2 Theatre 9/20-11/22, Opens 9/29

Producers Angelo Fraboni and Daryl Roth have announced that the New York premiere of Vigil, written by Morris Panych and directed by Stephen DiMenna, will begin performances Sunday, September 20, at 3pm at the DR2 Theatre, 103 East 15 Street, east of Union Square. The opening is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29 at 7pm.

Written by one of Canada's most acclaimed playwrights, Vigil is the much lauded, new play that tells the wickedly funny story of a selfish bank drudge who is tending to the wealthy dying aunt he hasn't seen in 30 years. She, however, isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Malcolm Gets's New York theatre credits include The Story of My Life; Amour (Tony and Drama Desk nominations); A New Brain; The Molière Comedies; Merrily We Roll Along (Drama Desk nomination, Obie Award); The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Obie); Hello Again; Boys and Girls; Finian's Rainbow; Polish Joke; Juno; and The Boys From Syracuse and The Apple Tree, both for the Encores! series. Regional credits include Williamstown, Yale Rep, Hartford Stage, ACT, Goodspeed and Westport Playhouse. He was Richard, the tortured artist, on NBC's "Caroline in the City." Films include Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Love in the Time of Money, Adam and Steve, Sex and the City, and Grey Gardens. Gets sings on many original cast CDs, including Barbara Cook's Mostly Sondheim, his Carnegie Hall debut. His first solo CD The Journey Home, will be released in March 2009 for PS Classics with John McDaniel as conductor. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and Yale School or Drama.

Helen Stenborg's Broadway credits include The Crucible, A Month in the Country, A Life, and Waiting in the Wings for which she received a Tony nomination. She and her late husband, Barnard Hughes, were honored with lifetime achievement awards from the Drama Desk. Ms. Stenborg toured the country in Da and has many off-Broadway credits, including the original company of Wit, and many plays with Circle Rep, receiving an Obie for Talley & Son by Lanford Wilson. Her film credits include Isn't She Great, Bless the Child, and the 2000 Oscar-winning short film, Her Mother Dreams. She has done extensive work in television and regional theatre, including 16 seasons at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.

A native of Edmonton, Alberta, Morris Panych is arguably Canada's most celebrated playwright and director. His 25 plays, which have been produced in over a dozen languages, have garnered countless awards, including two Governor General's Literary Awards for Drama-Canada's most prestigious literary honor (The Ends of the Earth and Girl in the Goldfish Bowl), 14 Jessie Richardson Awards, three Sidney Riske Writing Awards, and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Productions of the much lauded Vigil, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, and Lawrence and Holloman are currently being mounted throughout the world. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, 7 Stories will be staged in at Toronto's Canadian Stage Company in 2010. His groundbreaking work The Overcoat is touring worldwide to great acclaim and its film version, which Mr. Panych directed, won honorable mention at the Prix Italia. He has directed over 90 productions across Canada including Art, Take Me Out, Vigil, Amadeus, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, You Never Can Tell, Design for Living, The Government Inspector, Blithe Spirit, and Girl in the Goldfish Bowl. Acting credits include numerous guest starring roles and a recurring role on the hit series "X-Files," as well as over 50 stage productions. He recently starred in a highly successful production of Vigil at Vancouver Playhouse and was recently featured in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot in Toronto. In 2008 Mr. Panych made his Stratford Shakespeare Festival directorial debut with his adaptation of Moby Dick. In the same year he premiered two new works, Benevolence and The Amorous Adventures of Anatole. He returns to Stratford in 2009 to direct the premiere of his latest work The Trespassers. Mr. Panych is directing Olympia Dukakis in Vigil at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco in spring of 2010. He makes his home in Toronto and his website address is 2x2ltd.com.

Stephen DiMenna is Artistic Director of MCC Theater Youth Company, an ensemble of young people that creates original productions, and is on faculty at NYU's Steinhardt School. He is co-founder of The InterNational Theatre and Literacy Project, which conducts playwriting and literacy workshops for children in developing countries, particularly Tanzania and Ethiopia. He has conducted artist-in-the-schools residencies for 30 years and he is currently a senior teaching artist for TDF, MCC, and City Center. Directing credits include Vigil (Westport Playhouse), When We Were Singing (Harold Clurman Theatre), The Messenger, Timekeepers (with Alan Cumming and Ron Rifkin at Rattlestick Theatre), The Grabelski Concertos (Mint Theatre), Breathing Under Water (MCC), Delerious and UnCensored (MCC Youth Theater), Gone Missing (HB Playwrights foundation), The Saintly Sinner (Young Playwrights Inc.), A Silver Throne (Drama League), Prometheus Bound (EST), Timor Mortis (Players Club), and Incidents in the Life of a Slave (NYU/Tisch School of the Arts). Regional credits include Blackbird (Guthrie), The Shape of Things (Eye of the Storm Theatre), Bug, Jesus Hopped The ‘A' Train, Bel Canto, and Blackbird (Pillsbury House Theatre). He is director of Hennepin County Home School Drama Project where he conducts workshops with incarcerated juvenile felons in Minneapolis. Prior to moving to New York he lived in Minneapolis where he was Artistic Director of InitialStage Theatre and directed Tiny Island at the Guthrie Theater. He was also founder and Artistic Director of Minneapolis's Fuller Young People's Theatre; director of advanced theatre studies at the city's Perpich Center for Arts Education, a residential arts high school; and associate director of History Theatre. In 1996 he assisted Robert Wilson on the opera Time Rocker in Germany. He was a director at Princeton University where he stages the Princeton Triangle Club annual musical at the McCarter. Mr. DiMenna appeared in the 2003 film Camp.

Angelo Fraboni is currently lead producer and general manager of Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words at the Triad Theater, which won the 2009 Drama Desk Award for Best Unique Theatrical Experience. He is in association with Carl Moellenberg on the Broadway productions of Speed the Plow, Hair, and Mary Stuart. He was general manager of the off-Broadway production of Burleigh Grime$, starring Mark Moses and Wendie Malick, at New World Stages. On stage, he produced the weekly comedy series Campaign ‘04, Unzipped, starring Judy Gold at The Zipper Theater; co-produced and general managed the successful children's show It's a Magic Al's World at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Sharp Theater; and the critically-acclaimed off-Broadway series Singular Sensations with Carol Channing, at the Village Theater. Fraboni produced the music and the holiday CD for Fox TV's Rankin/Bass Christmas animated feature, "Santa Baby," starring the voices of Patti LaBelle, Eartha Kitt, Vanessa Williams, and Gregory Hines. He was the executive producer for the inaugural season of MLCPA. Fraboni produces corporate rollout shows for Ford, Saab, GM, Chrysler, and Delphi's Roady 2 with Studio Creative out of Detroit and does event planning and production. He managed the national concert tour for two-time Tony and Emmy Award winner Bebe Neuwirth and was associate producer of the film, Moving Mike, with St. Jude Pictures that is currently being shown at festivals.

Daryl Roth is proud to hold the singular distinction of producing six Pulitzer Prize winning plays: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (Tony Award Best Play); Proof by David Auburn (Tony Award Best Play); Wit by Margaret Edson; How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel; Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz; and Edward Albee's Three Tall Women. She has produced over 50 Broadway and off-Broadway plays and musicals since her first production in 1988. Her multiple award winning productions include Thurgood; A Catered Affair; Curtains; Is He Dead?; The Year of Magical Thinking; Coram Boy; Inherit the Wind; Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Caroline, or Change; Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (Tony Award Best Play); The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Salome; Medea; Irena's Vow; Mary Stuart; Desire Under the Elms; and Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. Off-Broadway productions include Die, Mommie, Die!; Indoor Outdoor; Esoterica; Manuscript; Thom Pain (based on nothing); Our Lady of 121st Street; Tea at Five; Talking Heads; Harlem Song; The Play About the Baby; Beckett/Albee; Snakebit; Defying Gravity; Camping with Henry and Tom; Old Wicked Songs; The Baby Dance; Dear Edwina, and Closer Than Ever. De La Guarda ran for seven years as the inaugural production at the Daryl Roth Theatre, the landmarked former Union Square Savings Bank. Ms. Roth made her film debut with the Emmy-nominated HBO feature, Dinner with Friends, based on Donald Margulies' Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Other films include The Lady in Question is Charles Busch and A Very Serious Person. Upcoming projects include the documentary, Stories My Dog Told Me, and a feature film based on the upcoming novel Apologize, Apologize.

The scenic design for Vigil is by Andromache Chalfant; costume design is by Ilona Somogyi; lighting design is by Ed McCarthy; original music and sound design are by Greg Pliska. The production manager is Ricardo Taylor.

Vigil plays at the DR2 Theatre, 103 East 15 Street, east of Union Square. The performance schedule through Tuesday, September 29 is Monday and Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday - Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 3pm and 8pm; and Sunday at 3pm. (Please note that there is no performance on Sunday, September 27.) Beginning Wednesday, September 30, the performance schedule is Wednesday at 2pm and 8pm; Thursday and Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 3pm and 8pm; and Sunday at 3pm and 7pm. Tickets are $65 and may be purchased by visiting www.telecharge.com or by phoning (212)239-6200 or in person at the DR2 Theatre, which opens two hours prior to every show. The box office (at 101 East 15 Street) is open for advance sales Tuesday 1 - 6pm; Wednesday - Saturday 1 - 8pm; and Sunday 1 - 7pm.

For more information, visit www.VigilthePlay.com.

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