Women's Project & Cherry Lane Present LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING, Previews 5/2

Women's Project, the 32-year-old non-profit theater dedicated to producing plays written and directed by women, and Cherry Lane Theatre, home to bold new voices, will present the world premiere of Sheila Callaghan's Lascivious Something directed by Daniella Topol and starring Rob Campbell, Dana Eskelson, Ronete Levenson and Elisabeth Waterston.

Lascivious Something takes place on a small, Greek island vineyard on which Sheila Callaghan weaves a tale of passion among an American, his young Greek bride, and a fractious, uninvited woman who arrives just in time for the couple's first wine tasting.

Lascivious Something , for which rehearsals began today (4/6), begins previews Sunday, May 2, at 3:00pm, opens Tuesday, May 11, at 7:00pm for a limited engagement through June 6 at Women's Project, 424 West 55th Street.

Lascivious Quotes
"We are bridging two worlds in uniting the south of 14th Street with the north of 42nd Street to provide a brilliant women theater artist with the major production her work deserves," Julie Crosby, Producing Artistic Director of Women's Project said.

"I expect Sheila's play to knock people out, thanks in no small measure to Daniella Topol's insightful guidance and direction," added Cherry Lane Theatre's Artistic Director Angelina Fiordellisi. Lascivious Something was originally developed and showcased in Cherry Lane Theatre's Mentor Project 2006.

Lascivious Playwright
Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Woolly Mammoth, and Rattlestick Playwright's Theatre, among others. Ms. Callaghan is the recipient of a 2005 Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. Her full-length plays include Scab, Crawl, Fade to White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Kate Crackernuts, That Pretty Pretty; or The Rape Play, and Fever/Dream. Currently, Ms. Callaghan is a writer on the Showtime series The United States of Tara.

Questions and answers with lascivious playwright Sheila Callaghan can be found at www.womensproject.org/lascivious%20something_playwright.htm

Lascivious Director
Daniella Topol's NY credits include: Trista Baldwin's Sand (Women's Project), Sheila Callaghan's Dead City (New Georges), Judith Thompson's Palace of the End (Epic Theatre), Susan Yankowitz's Night Sky (Baruch Performing Arts Center/Power Productions), Nicki Bloom's Tender (Summer Play Festival), Leslie Ayvazian's Carol and Jill (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Jakob Holder's Housebreaking (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), Zakiyyah Alexander's Sick? (Summer Play Festival), Peter Gil-Sheridan's Topsy Turvy Mouse (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), and Stanton Wood's Snow Queen (Urban Stages).

Lascivious Designers
Designers are Marsha Ginsberg, sets; Theresa Squire, costumes; Chris Akerlind, lighting; and the Broken Chord Collective, original music and sound. Jack Gianino is the production stage manager.

Lascivious Bios
Rob Campbell has premiered many roles on Broadway and off including roles for Caryl Churchill (Mad Forest), David Hare (Ivanov), Brian Friel (Translations), Suzan-Lori Parks (In the Blood and 365 Plays), Craig Lucas (The Singing Forest and Small Tragedy - Obie Award), Steve Martin (Wasp), Theresa Rebeck (Our House), and Emily Mann (Cherry Orchard). Among his film credits are Unforgiven, The Crucible, Boys Don't Cry, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, and Ethan Frome.

Dana Eskelson's roles include Marya Grekovna in Platonov, Varya in The Cherry Orchard, Masha in Three Sisters, and Masha in The Seagull with The Chekhov Retreat directed by Brian Mertes and Melissa Kievman.

Ronete Levinson's has appeared in New York in Our Town at the Barrow Street Theater; What Once We Felt at Lincoln Center Theater, Origin Story at The Public, and Stunning at New York Theater Workshop. Regionally, she has appeared at Berkelely Rep, Shakespeare Theater of D.C., The McCarter Theater.

Elisabeth Waterston most recently appeared as Isabella in Theatre for a New Audience's production of Measure for Measure. Her other New York credits include The Tempest for Classic StageCompany, The Young Left at the Cherry Lane, and Much Ado About Nothing at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

More lascivious bios at www.womensproject.org/lascivious%20something_creativeteam.html

Lascivious Women
Founded in 1978 by Julia Miles, and now under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Julie Crosby, Women's Project provides a stage for women playwrights and directors, who even today receive fewer than 20% of professional production opportunities nationwide.

Women's Project (WP) produces theater created by women, providing a forum for women's perspectives on political, social, and cultural topics. During its 32 years, countless artists have achieved significant recognition through WP productions, including Anne Bogart, Eve Ensler, Maria Irene Fornes, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Leigh Silverman, and Anna Deavere Smith, among the many. WP has produced staged over 600 mainstage productions and developmental projects, and published ten anthologies of plays by women. In 1998, WP purchased a historic off-Broadway venue on Manhattan's West 55th Street, making WP the first and only women's theater company to hold the keys to its own stage.

Women's Project is on a roll: Freshwater, Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, crooked, Sand, Or, and Smudge.

Founding Artistic Director Angelina Fiordellisi's Cherry Lane Theatre originally developed Lascivious Something in its Obie Award-winning Mentor Project program. A landmark in Greenwich Village's cultural landscape, Cherry Lane Theatre www.cherrylanetheatre.org serves as a vital cultural hub for the development and production of new American works, and the cultivation of a diverse, multigenerational audience. Cherry Lane's ground-breaking mentor project series, which pairs emerging writers with seasoned playwrights, is the recipient of a Village Voice Obie Award, while Cherry Lane's production of David Rambo's play The Lady with All the Answers starring Judith Ivey has been nominated for a 2010 Lucille Lortel for Outstanding Solo Show.

As New York City's longest continuously running Off-Broadway theatre, Cherry Lane has helped to define American drama, fostering theatre that is daring and relevant for 85 years. Since 1997, its resident company produces, under the leadership of Ms. Fiordellisi and Executive Director James King, mainstage productions, new plays developed within its award-winning programs and its Heritage Series featuring groundbreaking off-Broadway classics presented at Cherry Lane since 1924.

Lascivious Tickets
Single lascivious tickets are $52.00 at www.Telecharge.com or 212.239.6200. Lascivious Women's Project member tickets are $15.00 at membership@womensproject.org or 212.765.2105. For lascivious groups of nine or more, tickets are $25.00 at membership@womensproject.org or 212.765.2105.

Lascivious performances May 2 through June 6 are Sunday and Tuesday evenings at 7:00pm except for May 9, 23 and 31; Thursday through Saturday evenings are at 8:00pm with one Wednesday evening June 2 performance at 8:00pm. Matinees are Sundays at 3:00pm.

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