Vineyard's Co-Production of INDECENT Begins Performances Next Month Off-Broadway

Vineyard Theatre, in association with La Jolla Playhouse and Yale Repertory Theatre, will present the New York premiere of INDECENT, a new play with music, written by Paula Vogel, created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, and directed by Rebecca Taichman, at The Vineyard (108 East 15th Street) with previews beginning April 27 and opening night set for May 17. INDECENT features music composed by Lisa Gutkin (KLEZMATICS) and Aaron Halva (RED NOSES) and choreography by David Dorfman (GREEN VIOLIN).

The cast of INDECENT includes Katrina Lenk (ONCE), Mimi Lieber (ACT ONE), Max Gordon Moore (RELATIVELY SPEAKING), Tom Nelis (THE VISIT), Steven Rattazzi (THE FOURTH SISTER), Richard Topol (FISH IN THE DARK) and Adina Verson (HIM).

INDECENT, created by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (Vineyard's HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE and THE LONG CHRISTMAS RIDE HOME) and award-winning director Rebecca Taichman (STAGE KISS), is a deeply moving new play with music, inspired by the true events surrounding the controversial 1923 Broadway debut of Sholem Asch's GOD OF VENGEANCE - a play seen by some as a seminal work of Jewish culture, and by others as an act of traitorous libel. INDECENT charts the history of an incendiary drama and the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

PAULA VOGEL (PLAYWRIGHT) is Playwright in Residence at Yale Repertory Theatre. Her play HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well as her second OBIE Award. Other plays include DON JUAN COMES HOME FROM IRAQ, THE LONG CHRISTMAS RIDE HOME, THE MINEOLA TWINS, THE BALTIMORE WALTZ, HOT 'N' THROBBING, DESDEMONA, AND BABY MAKES SEVEN, THE OLDEST PROFESSION, and A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS. In 2004-05, she was the playwright in residence at New York's Signature Theatre. TCG has published four books of her work: The Mammary Plays, The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays, The Long Christmas Ride Home, and A Civil War Christmas. Most recent awards include the Theatre Hall of Fame, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild, and the 2015 Thornton Wilder Award. She is honored to have two awards to emerging playwrights named after her: the Paula Vogel Award, created by the American College Theatre Festival in 2003, and the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, given annually by the Vineyard Theatre since 2007. Ms. Vogel won the 2004 Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the OBIE for Best Play in 1992, the Rhode Island Pell Award in the Arts, the Hull-Warriner Award, The Laura Pels Award, the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Award, a Guggenheim, an AT&T New Plays Award, the Fund for New American Plays, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Fellowship, several National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the McKnight Fellowship, and the Bunting Fellowship from Radcliffe College. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was recently awarded a Thirtini from 13P in New York. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Double UCross Colony, as well as Yaddo. She has taught for 24 years at Brown University and for five years at Yale School of Drama where she was the Eugene O'Neill Professor of Playwriting. She is honored by Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Quiara Hudes, who is curating the Paula Vogel Mentors Project.

REBECCA TAICHMAN (DIRECTOR) Off-Broadway credits include FAMILIAR by Danai Gurira (upcoming, Playwrights Horizons); THE OLDEST BOY by Sarah Ruhl (Lincoln Center Theater); THE LUCK OF THE IRISH (LCT3); STAGE KISS, MILK LIKE SUGAR (Playwrights Horizons); ORLANDO (Classic Stage Company); ORPHEUS (New York City Opera); DARK SISTERS (Music Theater Group, Gotham Chamber Opera); RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER (Gotham Chamber Opera); MARIE ANTOINETTE (Soho Rep.); THE SCENE (Second Stage, Humana Festival of New Plays); and MENOPAUSAL GENTLEMAN (Ohio Theatre). Regional credits include SLEEPING BEAUTY WAKES, MILK LIKE SUGAR (La Jolla Playhouse); TWELFTH NIGHT, TIME AND THE CONWAYS (The Old Globe); MARIE ANTOINETTE (A.R.T.); SHE LOVES ME (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); THE WINTER'S TALE (McCarter Theatre Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company); CYMBELINE, TWELFTH NIGHT, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (Shakespeare Theatre Company); TWELFTH NIGHT, SLEEPING BEAUTY WAKES (McCarter); DEAD MAN'S CELL PHONE and THE CLEAN HOUSE (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), the world premieres of FAMILIAR by Danai Gurira and David Adjmi's THE EVILDOERS and MARIE ANTOINETTE at Yale Rep, and INDECENT at La Jolla Playhouse and Yale Rep. She received her MFA from Yale School of Drama.

LISA GUTKIN (CO-COMPOSER and MUSICAL DIRECTOR) Grammy-winning Lisa Gutkin is best known as violinist, vocalist, and composer for the Klezmatics, and recently for her work in Sting's Broadway production THE LAST SHIP. As an actress/musician/composer she has appeared in "Sex and the City," HAVA NAGILA (The Movie), THE KLEZMATICS: ON HOLY GROUND, and Seeing Is Believing by Dutch choreographer Maggie Boogaart. Lisa's compositions include the score for Mabou Mines' SONG FOR NEW YORK: WHAT WOMEN DO WHILE MEN SIT KNITTING, a multi-ethnic folk opera, directed by Ruth Maleczech, and songs with lyrics by Woody Guthrie, Maggie Dubris, and Anne Sexton. She records and performs with an immense array of artists and has appeared on "The Conan O'Brien Show," A Prairie Home Companion, World Cafe, Mountain Stage, etc. Lisa is a MacDowell Artist Fellow, has released an instructional DVD called Play Klezmer Fiddle! on Homespun Tapes, and is soon to release the first of three collections of newly composed songs and compositions.

AARON HALVA (CO-COMPOSER and MUSICAL DIRECTOR) Raised amongst polkas and hymns in Iowa, Aaron has since studied music in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Greece, and Spain. His previous work at Yale Rep includes Dario Fo's ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST, Molière's A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF, and Goldoni's THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS, all directed by Christopher Bayes. New York theatre credits include RED NOSES by Peter Barnes, FOUR by Feydeau, THE BOURGEOIS GENTLEMAN, THE MOLIÈRE ONE ACTS, MONSIEUR DE POURCEAUGNAC, THE LOVE OF THREE ORANGES by Carlo Gozzi (The Juilliard School); THE IMAGINARY INVALID by Molière, THE NEW PLACE by Carlo Goldoni, WE WON'T PAY! WE WON'T PAY! by Dario Fo, and a new adaptation of Molière's THE RELUCTANT DOCTOR OF LOVE (New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program). Regional credits include THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS (Guthrie Theater, ArtsEmerson, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, and Seattle Rep), A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF (Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Rep), and THE MOLIÈRE IMPROMPTU (Trinity Rep). International: BALLYWOONDE (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). Film: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, as leader and arranger for Cuban music group Nu D'Lux.

DAVID DORFMAN (CHOREOGRAPHER), artistic director of his vainly named company since 1987, is also Professor of Dance and Chair at Connecticut College since 2004. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, four NEA fellowships, a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award, and a Barrymore Award in Philadelphia for Best Choreography on Green Violin, his first collaboration with Rebecca Taichman. 2014-15 brought David Dorfman Dance to Armenia, Tajikistan, and Turkey via the State Department, DanceMotion USA, and Brooklyn Academy of Music, where DDD has appeared in three Next Wave Festivals. David also tours a serio-comic evening, Live Sax Acts, with long-time collaborator, Dan Froot.

Leadership support for INDECENT provided by Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. Support for Vineyard Theatre comes in part from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Shubert Foundation and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. Public funds are provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and The New York State Council on the Arts.

INDECENT concludes Vineyard Theatre's 2015-2016 season; previous productions this season include the new musical GIGANTIC with book by Randy Blair & Tim Drucker, music by Matthew Roi Berger, lyrics by Randy Blair, directed by Scott Schwartz, and the New York premiere of the DOT by Colman Domingo, directed by Susan Stroman, which continues its extended run until March 24.

Dedicated to the creation and production of daring new plays and musicals, The Vineyard has consistently premiered provocative, groundbreaking works, including Nicky Silver's THE LYONS; Marx, Lopez and Whitty's Tony Award-winning musical AVENUE Q; Kander and Ebb's THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS; Bell and Bowen's [title of show]; Paula Vogel's HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE (1998 Pulitzer Prize); Edward Albee's THREE TALL WOMEN (1994 Pulitzer Prize); Tarell Alvin McCraney's WIG OUT!; Becky Mode's FULLY COMMITTED; Jenny Schwartz' GOD'S EAR; Will Eno's MIDDLETOWN; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' GLORIA; and many more. The Vineyard's productions have been honored with two Pulitzer Prizes, three Tony Awards, and numerous Drama Desk, OBIES, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards.

The Vineyard Theatre's leadership includes Douglas Aibel (Artistic Director), Sarah Stern (Artistic Director), and Jennifer Garvey-Blackwell (Executive Producer).

Tickets go on sale to Vineyard Theatre members on March 8 and single ticket sales for the general public begin March 22. For more information, please call the box office at (212) 353-0303 or visit www.vineyardtheatre.org. Group sales should call 212-353-3366, ext. 214.

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