Works by James Lecesne, Anne Bogart and More Set for Abingdon's 24th Season

Abingdon Theatre Company will present two world-premiere plays and a new musical in the June Havoc Theatre as part of its 2016-2017 Season of new works by established and emerging writers, marking the first full season programmed by Artistic Director Tony Speciale.

Abingdon's 24th Season launches in January 2017 with the world-premiere of THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, a new play by Academy Award and Outer Critics Award winner James Lecesne. The production reunites Lecesne with director Tony Speciale, who directed the playwright's award-winning solo play The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey.

In March 2017, the company continues its season with the world premiere of CHESS MATCH, a co-production with Siti Company, conceived and directed by Anne Bogart, with text arranged by Jocelyn Clarke from public conversations with John Cage.

Abingdon Theatre Company's 2016-2017 Season concludes in April/May 2017 with the New York premiere of its first musical, THE BOY WHO DANCED ON AIR by Tim Rosser (music) and Charlie Sohne (book and lyrics), recipients of the 2015 Jonathan Larson Grant. Tony Speciale, who directed the musical's world premiere in San Diego last spring, is set to direct.

Following are details regarding Abingdon's upcoming season:

January/February 2017

THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

by James Lecesne

directed by Tony Speciale

When Dottie Nerber's son and daughter arrive to pack up the contents of their mother's Florida home, their conflicting memories of her collide. As the siblings unpack family secrets, they must separate fact from fiction and are forced to question the narratives of their own lives. James Lecesne's new full-length play, THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, is an unflinching and comedic look at how one family deals with the effects of Alzheimer's. It questions why we tell the stories we do about the people we love, and how we live with those stories after they've been debunked.

James Lecesne has been ranked by The New York Times as "among the most talented solo performers of his (or any) generation." His acclaimed solo play, The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, received Outer Critic's Circle and Off-Broadway Alliance awards for its run at the Westside Theatre, directed by Tony Speciale, and is currently touring the country. THE MOTHER OF INVENTION was workshopped at New York Stage & Film, starring Linda Lavin and directed by Michael Wilson. Lecesne wrote the screenplay for the short film Trevor, which won an Academy Award and inspired the founding of The Trevor Project, the only nationwide 24-hour suicide prevention and crisis intervention lifeline for LGBT and questioning youth. Broadway: The Best Man. Off-Broadway: Word of Mouth, presented by Mike Nichols and Elaine May, directed by Eve Ensler (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award); The Boys in the Band; Motherhood Out Loud; One Man Band; and Cloud 9. Television: Armistead Maupin's Further Tales of the City (Emmy nomination), Will & Grace and the ITVS series Vicious, starring Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. Lecesne has written three novels for young adults, including Absolute Brightness, and he was executive producer of the documentary film After the Storm, which follows the lives of 12 young people living in post-Katrina New Orleans.

THE MOTHER OF INVENTION begins previews in January 2017.

February/March 2017

CHESS MATCH

conceived and directed by Anne Bogart

text arranged by Jocelyn Clarke from public conversations with John Cage

created by Siti Company

CHESS MATCH is a new play based on text from the many public conversations with American composer, writer, artist, and philosopher John Cage. Two actors embody the phenomenon of a long-term relationship going well, going awry, in battle, in love, in reconciliation, torn apart and put back together again over the course of a single night and a chess game. Dense and humorous, graceful and penetrating, this is Siti Company at its most relatable and profound.

Anne Bogart is one of the three Co-Artistic Directors of the Siti Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. Productions with SITI include the theater is a blank page, Persians, Steel Hammer, A Rite, Café Variations, Trojan Women (After Euripides), American Document, Antigone, Under Construction, Freshwater, Radio Macbeth, Hotel Cassiopeia, Intimations for Saxophone, Death and the Ploughman, A Midsummer Night's Dream, La Dispute, Score, Hay Fever, bobrauschenbergamerica, Room, War of the Worlds, Cabin Pressure, The Radio Play, Bob, Culture of Desire, Private Lives, Miss Julie, Alice's Adventures, Small Lives/Big Dreams, Going, Going, Gone, The Medium, and Orestes.

Since completing her studies-Bard College (B.A.) and New York University (M.A.)-Anne has participated in the American theater as a director, playwright, essayist, teacher, and is the recipient of numerous accolades: Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2012), Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Creative & Performing Arts, University of Chicago (2012), Honorary Degree from Skidmore College (2011), the Pat Miller Playmaker Award from Emory University (2011), Rockefeller Fellow USA Artists Foundation (2006), Distinguished Career Award-South East Theatre Conference (2006), the Elliott Norton Award for Outstanding Direction (2003), Distinguished Chancellorship Award (2002), the Edwin Booth Award (2001), the Charles Flint Kellogg Award (2001), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2000/2001), an ATHE Career Achievement Award (1999), designation by The Actors Theatre of Louisville as Modern Master (1995), two Obies (1990 & 1988), a Bessie Award (1984), a Villager Award (1980). She has served as President of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) from 1990 to 1992. She was also briefly the Artistic Director of the Trinity Repertory Theater in Providence, Rhode Island (1989 - 1990). She is currently a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program. She is the author of a book of essays entitled And Then You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World; A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theater; Conversations with Anne; co-author with Tina Landau of The Viewpoints Book; and her most recent book What's the Story.

As a director, she has staged classical, modern, contemporary and devised plays. She has also directed operas and musicals. Her repertoire of productions include plays by Pierre Marivaux, Anton Chekhov, Shakespeare, Paula Vogel, Leonard Bernstein, Georg Buchner, Frank Wedekind, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Calderon de la Barca, and Mac Wellman. In addition to Columbia University where she has been since 1991, Ms. Bogart taught at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theater Wing from 1977-1986, at the University of California in San Diego from 1988-1990 (Associate Professor with a tenured chair), School for Movement Research from 1984-1989, and at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School from 1990-1992.

Jocelyn Clarke is currently Theatre Adviser to the Arts Council of Ireland and dramaturg at American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He has taught dramaturgy at the John Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, Columbia University and Trinity College Dublin. He was the Commissioning and Literary Manager of the Abbey Theatre for four years, and lead theatre critic with The Sunday Tribune for nine years. He is an associate artist with The Civilians and Theatre Mitu in New York. He has written six plays for Anne Bogart and the Siti Company: Bob, Alice's Adventures Underground, Room, Score, Antigone, and Trojan Women (After Euripides).

Siti Company is an ensemble-based theater company whose three ongoing components are the creation of new work, the training of young theater artists, and a commitment to international collaboration. SITI was founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki to redefine and revitalize contemporary theater in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration.

April/May 2017

THE BOY WHO DANCED ON AIR

music by Tim Rosser

book and lyrics by Charlie Sohne

directed by Tony Speciale

THE BOY WHO DANCED ON AIR is a modern-day love story set in rural Afghanistan. Paiman and Feda have spent their young lives as dancers in the world of bacha bazi, where wealthy men take in boys from poor families, train them to dance at parties, and often abuse them. The two boys' chance meeting changes the course of their lives and sets them on a journey to find their independence in this musical fable about love, tradition, morality and the strength of the human spirit.

Tim Rosser and Charlie Sohne are recipients of the 2015 Jonathan Larson Grant and ASCAP's 2015 Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award. Rosser and Sohne were also 2014-15 Dramatists Guild Fellows, recipients of the 2016 Yale Institute for Music Theater Alumni Residency, members of the Civilian's R&D Group, and writers in the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and ASCAP's Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project. THE BOY WHO DANCED ON AIR was featured at NAMT in 2013, received development and production grants from NAMT in 2014 and 2015, and received its world premiere at The Diversionary Theater in San Diego in the Spring of 2016. Their pilot, Truth Slash Fiction, won best comedy at SeriesFest. Their first musical, The Profit of Creation, was seen at the Yale Institute for Music Theater. Rosser and Sohne's songs have been heard at their sold-out 54 Below show, Birdland, Contemporary Classics at Seattle Rep, Cutting Edge Composers at Joe's Pub, ALNM at Rockwell in Los Angeles, Above the Arts in London, a sold out show at Broadway au Carre in Paris, and the Kennedy Center. Separately, Sohne has had work seen at The Lark, The O'Neill, and NY Stage and Film, while Rosser has conducted performances of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder on Broadway and music directed Broadway Backwards.

Tony Speciale joined Abingdon Theatre Company as its Artistic Director in October 2015. He conceived, co-authored and directed the world premiere of Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company-Drama Desk Award nominee, GLAAD Media Award nominee). NYC: The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (Westside Theatre/Dixon Place), A Midsummer Night's Dream featuring Bebe Neuwirth, Christina Ricci and Taylor Mac (Classic Stage Company); Handbook for an American Revolutionary (The Gym at Judson); and Stet (Abingdon). Regional: The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (Kirk Douglas Theatre, Bay Street Theatre), Barry Manilow's Harmony (ALLIANCE THEATRE/Ahmanson Theatre) and Romeo and Juliet (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Tony served four seasons as Associate Artistic Director at Classic Stage Company, where he helped found and administered The Young Company, CSC's premiere Education and Outreach Program for public high school students. He studied musical theatre at The Boston Conservatory and holds an M.F.A. in Directing from Columbia University. He is also the proud recipient of a Princess Grace Theatre Honorarium and a Suzi Bass Award.

Casts and creative teams for Abingdon's 2016-2017 mainstage productions in the June Havoc Theatre are to be announced.

On October 24, Abingdon celebrate its 2016-2017 Season with a gala benefit reading of Orson Welles' legendary radio play War of the Worlds. The one-night-only event, to be held at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, features Mario Cantone, David Greenspan, Lindsay Mendez, Martin Moran, Stark Sands, Sally Ann Triplett, Michael Urie, and other artists to be announced.

Abingdon Theatre Company is dedicated to developing and producing new American works by emerging and established artists. Under the artistic direction of Tony Speciale, the company provides a safe home where playwrights, directors and actors can collaborate within a supportive and nurturing environment. Abingdon searches for stories about the human experience that reflect our social, political, historical and cultural diversity. To date, the company has collaborated with more than 200 playwrights, produced 87 New York and world-premiere plays, presented more than 700 readings, staged over 175 ten-minute plays, and commissioned 6 one-act plays. Notable artists who have worked with Abingdon Theatre Company include Carl Andress, Bryan Batt, Reed Birney, Robert Brustein, Mario Cantone, Maxwell Caulfield, Dick Cavett, John Epperson, Jane Greenwood, Arthur Kopit, Ralph Macchio, Roberta Maxwell, Iddo Netanyahu, Nancy Opel, Austin Pendleton, Sam Pinkleton, Marcia Rodd and Mark Waldrop. Abingdon's 2014 production of Brian Richard Mori's Hellman v. McCarthy, directed by founding artistic director Jan Buttram, was filmed and presented by WNET as part of its inaugural Theatre Close-Up series.

Subscriptions to Abingdon Theatre Company's 2016-2017 Season of new works, including THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, CHESS MATCH and THE BOY WHO DANCED ON AIR in the June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues), are available. For more details, call 212-352-3101 or visit abingdontheatre.org.

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