Haley Joel Osment, Stephen Rowe to Lead Philadelphia Theatre Company's RED

Philadelphia Theatre Company opens its 2011-2012 season with the Philadelphia premiere of John Logan's Tony Award-winning drama Red October 14-November 13 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (Broad and Lombard Streets). Directed by Anders Cato, the two-person cast features Broadway veteran Stephen Rowe and Oscar nominee Haley Joel Osment.

Previews begin Friday, October 14 with opening night on Wednesday, October 19. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday until November 13. Tickets starting at $25 are available by calling the PTC Box Office at 215-985-0420 or visiting PhiladelphiaTheatreCompany.org. Philadelphia Theatre Company's Suzanne Roberts Theatre is located at Broad and Lombard Streets.

In Red, master abstract expressionist Mark Rothko has just landed the biggest commission in the history of modern art - a series of murals for New York's famed Four Seasons Restaurant. In the two fascinating years that follow, Rothko works feverishly with his young assistant, Ken, in his studio on the Bowery. Raw and provocative, Red is a searing portrait of an artist's ambition and vulnerability as he tries to create a definitive work of art.

John Logan (Playwright) has authored Never the Sinner about the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, Hauptmann about the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping, and Riverview, a musical melodrama set at Chicago's famed amusement park. Red, which premiered in London, received six Tony Awards in 2010, the most of any play that year, including best play, best direction of a play, and best featured actor in a play. As a screenwriter, Logan has received two Academy Award nominations for Gladiator and The Aviator, and a Golden Globe Award for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He has also written Any Given Sunday, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Time Machine, and The Last Samurai. Logan's most recent feature films include Rango, an animated feature starring Johnny Depp, the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, and the film adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret directed by Martin Scorsese.

Swedish-born Anders Cato (Director) has directed extensively at theaters in the U.S. and Europe since 1990. This season he directed the world premiere of Steven Drukman's The Innocents at the Asolo Repertory Theatre, Pygmalion at the Alley Theatre in Houston, and Circle Mirror Transformation with Sandy Duncan at George Street Playhouse. He has directed 15 productions at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, including his own translation/adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts and Strindberg's The Father as well as Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion!, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Via Dolorosa, The Night of the Iguana (with Garret Dillahunt and Linda Hamilton), American Buffalo (with Chris Noth), The Misanthrope (with David Adkins and Kate Jennings Grant), Heartbreak House (with Marin Hinkle and David Schramm), Talley's Folly (with Mark Nelson and Kate Jennings Grant), and Miss Julie (with Marin Hinkle and Mark Feuerstein), for the 80th Anniversary Season Candida (starring Jayne Atkinson) and Waiting for Godot.

At George Street Playhouse he directed Conor McPherson's The Seafarer, Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright, and Souvenir by Stephen Temperley. His production of I Am My Own Wife, starring Mark Nelson, was previously produced at Cleveland Playhouse, Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, and Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale. Other directing credits include: Texts for Nothing (with Joseph Chaikin) at The Royal Court Theatre in London, The Magic Theater in San Francisco and La Mama in New York; When the World Was Green (with Alvin Epstein) at American Repertory Theatre and Moscow Art Theater; Blood Orange at Cherry Lane Theater; A Dream Play at the Westbeth Theater; The War in Heaven at La Jolla Playhouse; All My Sons, Tango Palace and In Berlin at 7 Stages in Atlanta; Dirty Blonde, The Lynching of Leo Frank, and Gross Indecency at Theater in the Square. Cato collaborated with legendary theater artist Joseph Chaikin for over ten years and produced a documentary film with Dee Henoch about Chaikin's life in the theater.

Stephen Rowe (Rothko) understudied the role of Mark Rothko in the Broadway production of Red. Other Broadway productions include Frost/Nixon, The Goat, Some Americans Abroad, The Nerd, Spoils of War, and Serious Money. He has appeared Off-Broadway in A Picasso at Manhattan Theatre Club, Big Bill at Lincoln Center, Tiny Alice at Second Stage, and The Normal Heart and Coming of Age in Soho, both at New York Shakespeare Festival. Regional credits include performances at McCarter Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, and South Coast Repertory, where he earned a Drama-Logue Award for So Many Words and starred in the world premiere of Sight Unseen, a role which also earned him a Bay Area Critics Award at Berkeley Rep.

Haley Joel Osment (Ken) rose to fame with his Oscar-nominated performance in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. His other credits include Pay It Forward opposite Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, Steven Spielberg's A.I., and Secondhand Lions opposite Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. He then took four years off to attend NYU and recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. During his time at NYU he made his Broadway debut in 2008 in a revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, co-starring John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer. Osment recently worked on the indie comedy Sassy Pants with Diedrich Bader and Ashley Rickards. He will next shoot Wake The Dead, a remake of the Frankenstein tale with director Jay Russell, with the iconic guitarist of Guns & Roses, Slash, producing.

Red brings together the creative team of set designer James Noone, lighting designer Tyler Micoleau, costume designer Alejo Vietti, and sound designer/composer Josh Schmidt.
Philadelphia Theatre Company's 2011-2012 season continues with The Scottsboro Boys with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb and book by David Thompson (January 20-February 19), The Outgoing Tide by Bruce Graham (March 23 - April 22), and reasons to be pretty by Neil LaBute (May 25-June 24), as well as PTC's annual New Play Festival PTC@PLAY (February 27-March 11).

Founded in 1974, Philadelphia Theatre Company is a leading regional theater company whose mission is to produce, develop and present entertaining and imaginative contemporary theater focused on the American experience that both ignites the intellect and touches the soul. By developing new work through commissions, readings and workshops PTC generates projects that have a national impact and reach broad regional audiences. Under the leadership of Sara Garonzik as PTC's Producing Artistic Director since 1982, PTC supports the work of a growing body of diverse dramatists and takes pride in being a home to scores of nationally recognized artists who have participated in more than 140 world and Philadelphia premieres. PTC has received 45 Barrymore Awards and 155 nominations. Shira Beckerman was recently hired as PTC's new Managing Director after an extensive six-month national search. Beckerman's most recent position was Managing Director at The Pearl Theatre Company Off-Broadway. In October 2007, PTC moved into a home of its own, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre on Center City Philadelphia's Avenue of the Arts, solidifying the Company's status as a major player on the American theater scene. 

For further information, please call 215-735-7356.

 

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