OSF-Commissions SWEAT and iNDECENT Earn Tony Award Nominations for Best Play

The American Theatre Wing nominated two plays commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 2017 Tony Awards today, including Best Play. Commissioned through OSF's American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle, Sweat by Lynn Nottage and Indecent by Paula Vogel each received three nominations.

"Both of these extraordinary plays by these remarkable writers capture the beauty and complication of our human hearts, and remind us all of our responsibility to take care of each other when anyone's life and dignity is under assault," said Alison Carey, director of American Revolutions. "Set in different times and places, the plays also make clear that history requires us to remain vigilant against any return of its darkest moments. We are so fortunate these plays are here to guide us to a more humane future."

American Revolutions is OSF's multi-decade program of commissioning and developing 37 new plays about moments of change in United States history. Launched in 2008, 32 plays have been commissioned so far and the final five will be announced this year. The writing and development of American Revolutions plays is expected to last at least through 2027.

Sweat and Indecent are the only works by living female playwrights on Broadway this season, and mark the Broadway debuts for both Nottage and Vogel. Also receiving Tony nominations were Sweat actors Johanna Day and Michelle Wilson and Indecent director Rebecca Taichman and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind.

"We're thrilled and humbled by the Tony nominations for these two powerful plays that were commissioned by American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle program," said OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch. "In particular, that half of the four works nominated for Best Play came out of American Revolutions is a well-deserved affirmation of the amazing work of Director Alison Carey and Associate Director Julie Felise Dubiner in their creation and curation of this commissioning program. I'm also gratified to see that the theatre community is beginning the long-overdue work of addressing gender parity in our field. The nominations of Lynn Nottage, Paula Vogel, Rebecca Taichman and the other women in this year's Tony nominations are hopefully just one of many steps that are being taken to address this historical inequity."

Sweat was co-commissioned with Arena Stage and had its world premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015. It was produced by Arena Stage and The Public Theater in 2016. The play earned Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017, and she is the first woman to win that prize twice.

Indecent was co-commissioned with Yale Repertory Theatre and premiered at Yale and La Jolla Playhouse in 2015, followed by a run at the Vineyard Theatre in 2016.

"While we do not have plans to produce Indecent at OSF in 2018," Rauch said, "we look forward to considering it for future seasons, and I am thrilled that the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis has already committed to producing it in their 2017-18 season. We have no doubt that both Indecent and Sweat will enjoy healthy lives in the regional theatre for years to come."

Along with Robert Schenkkan's All the Way, three American Revolutions commissions have now been nominated for Tony Awards. All the Way won for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play (Bryan Cranston) in 2014.

The next American Revolutions commission to be produced at OSF will be the world premiere of Idris Goodwin's The Way the Mountain Moved in 2018. In the haunting and haunted wilderness setting of the play, African-American Mormons, Department of War surveyors, pioneer women and a Mexican-American war veteran lose their way and find each other in the starkly beautiful, pre-railroad American West. They are unknowingly watched by Native Americans who argue whether to befriend, fight, or flee the newcomers. In a nation still taking shape, built mostly of dreams and ideas, which version of America will prevail?

American Revolutions commissioned artists to date are: the 1491s (Dallas Goldtooth, Sterlin Harjo, Migizi Pensoneau, Ryan Red Corn and Bobby Wilson), Tanya Barfield, Bill Cain, Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza), Kristoffer Diaz, Michael Friedman, Frank Galati, Idris Goodwin, Kirsten Greenidge, Quiara Alegría Hudes, David Henry Hwang, Aditi Kapil, Stephen Karam, Basil Kreimendahl, Lisa Kron, Young Jean Lee, Lisa Loomer, Mona Mansour, Dominique Morisseau, collaborators Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone, Carlos Murillo, Lynn Nottage, Susan Nussbaum, Dan O'Brien, Robert O'Hara, Jiehae Park, Robert Schenkkan, collaborators Rebecca Taichman and Paula Vogel, Naomi Wallace, UNIVERSES (includes core performers Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz, William Ruiz), Rhiana Yazzie and Karen Zacarías. American Revolutions partner theaters include Arena Stage, CenterStage, Company One, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Penumbra Theatre Company, The Public Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Playwrights Center, New Native Theater and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Friedman's commission is shared by American Revolutions and the Edgerton Fund for New Musicals.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust are supporting American Revolutions commissions and development at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this season.

American Revolutions premieres include: American Night: The Ballad of Juan José by Richard Montoya and Culture Clash (2010 at OSF); Ghost Light by Tony Taccone, conceived and developed with Jonathan Moscone (2011 at OSF, co-produced with Berkeley Repertory Theatre); The March by Frank Galati, adapted from E.L. Doctorow's novel (2011 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Party People by UNIVERSES (Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, and William Ruiz a.k.a. Ninja) (2012 at OSF); All the Way by Robert Schenkkan (2012 at OSF); The Liquid Plain by Naomi Wallace (2013 at OSF); Robert Schenkkan's The Great Society, the sequel to All The Way (2014 at OSF, commissioned by and co-produced with Seattle Repertory Theatre); Sweat by Lynn Nottage (2015 at OSF); Indecent by Paula Vogel (2015 at Yale Repertory Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse; 2016 at Vineyard Theatre); Roe by Lisa Loomer (2016 at OSF, co-produced with Arena Stage and Berkeley Repertory Theatre) and The Way the Mountain Moved by Idris Goodwin (2018 at OSF).

Founded by Angus Bowmer in 1935, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) has grown from a three-day festival of two plays to a nationally renowned theatre arts organization that presents an eight-month season of up to 11 plays that include works by Shakespeare as well as a mix of classics, musicals, and world-premiere plays and musicals. OSF's play commissioning programs, which include American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, have generated works that have been produced on Broadway, throughout the American regional theatre, and in high schools and community theatres across the country. The Festival draws attendance of more than 400,000 to approximately 800 performances every year and employs approximately 575 theatre professionals.

OSF invites and welcomes everyone, and believes the inclusion of diverse people, ideas, cultures and traditions enriches both our insights into the work we present on stage and our relationships with each other. OSF is committed to equity and diversity in all areas of our work and in our audiences.

OSF's mission statement: "Inspired by Shakespeare's work and the cultural richness of the United States, we reveal our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, deepened by the kaleidoscope of rotating repertory."

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