Trinity Rep presents the Uproarious Comedy FAITHFUL CHEATERS

Trinity Rep continues its 53rd season with the world premiere comedy, Faithful Cheaters by Deborah Salem Smith,directed by Melia Bensussen. Faithful Cheaters runs April 20 - May 21, 2017. Tickets are on sale now by phone at (401) 351-4242, online at www.trinityrep.com, or in person at the theater's box office at 201 Washington Street, Providence.

Faithful Cheaters is an uproarious modern comedy for modern marriages. Poppy and Theo are always working. Neither has time to pay attention to their marriage. Luckily, now there's a nose spray for fidelity! One dose daily and presto: enhanced monogamy! Or so Theo hopes...With the future of their marriage on the line, will a weekend getaway with Poppy's meddling mothers, spotty cell service, and a bizarre interloper go so wrong it ultimately goes right?

Deborah Salem Smith's work has been praised as "lucid, deeply nuanced and fearless" by The New York Times, and "first-rate, a gem" by the Boston Globe. Her riveting dramas Some Things Are Private, Boots on the Ground, and Love Alone have garnered critical attention for their honest portrayals of controversial issues-privacy, war, and medical malpractice.

"When I gave Trinity Rep Faithful Cheaters, they expected it to be similar to my previous plays. However, instead of taking on a hot-button cultural issue, the play investigates a timeless (and mysterious!) social issue - the union between two people." said playwright Deborah Salem Smith. "Instead of being a serious drama, this one is a serious comedy. It has at its center very real characters that we come to love and root for. They end up in an incredible mess, and to get out of the mess they go on an uproarious chase, but ultimately they discover love."

"Faithful Cheaters takes political and personal identities and smashes them together. At a time when our society is examining how we think about marriage and commitment, this play uses those issues as a leaping off point...for comedy." added artistic Director Curt Columbus. "And of course, because it was written for Trinity Rep by our playwright-in-residence, it features our amazing resident company of actors. In that way, it is a celebration of our artistic family, and our one-of-a-kind new play process."

The script was developed at Trinity Rep for members of the Acting Company. As part of the script development, four workshops were held over the course of 4 years. The cast includes Trinity Rep resident Acting Company members Rebecca Gibel, Mauro Hantman, Anne Scurria, Stephen Thorne, and Charlie Thurston. Guest actor Karen MacDonald will be joining the cast. A well-known and highly-regarded Boston actor, MacDonald is making her Trinity Rep debut. MacDonald has been awarded several IRNE and Eliot Norton Awards including the Prize for Sustained Excellence.

The creative team includes Cristina Todesco (set design), Olivera Gajic (costume design), Daniel J. Kotlowitz (lighting design), David Remedios (sound design), Charles Haugland (dramaturgy) and stage manager Megan Tracy Leddy.

Deborah Salem Smith is the playwright-in-residence at Trinity Rep, and a Huntington Theatre Playwriting Fellow. Her play Love Alonepremiered at Trinity Rep and received an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award and a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honorable Mention, and was a finalist for both the National Lambda Literary Award in Drama and the IRNE Award for Best New Play. She has received multiple commissions, and her work has been developed at Trinity Rep (Boots on the Ground, Some Things Are Private), Huntington Theatre Company, Women's Project Theater, and Playmakers Repertory Company. Her honors include an Emerging American Artist Fulbright for playwriting at the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's national theater; a National Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities; a MacDowell Colony residency; a Bray Visiting Scholar/Creative Artists Fellowship; a Major Hopwood Award; and awards from Princeton University. Her work is published by Dramatists Play Service.

Melia Bensussen most recently directed Precious Little by Madeline George at the Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, and A Doll's House at the Huntington Theatre. Among her other credits are productions with Sleeping Weazel, Actors Shakespeare Project, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Hartford Stage Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the New York Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Class Company, Primary Stages, the Long Wharf Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), People's Light and Theatre Company (Barrymore nomination for Best Direction), and Playwrights Horizons among others. A recipient of an OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction, and a graduate oF Brown University, Melia now serves as Chair of the Arts Advisory Board for the Princess Grace Foundation, as well as being Chair of the Performing Arts Department at Emerson College.

Trinity Rep's 53rd season is sponsored by Ocean State Job Lot and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA).

Trinity Repertory Company

The State Theater of Rhode Island, Trinity Repertory Company is now in its 53rd season. Since its founding in 1963, Trinity Repertory Company has been one of the most respected regional theaters in the country. Featuring one of the last permanent resident acting companies in America, Trinity Rep presents a balance of world premiere, contemporary, and classic works for an estimated annual audience of approximately 110,000. Since 1963, the theater has produced 67 world premieres, mounted national and international tours, and trained hundreds of new actors and directors through its MFA program.

Subscriptions for the 2017-2018 season now on sale. Trinity Rep's 2016-2017 season concludes with Like Sheep to Water, or Fuente Ovejuna by Lope De Vega Carpio, running May 11- June 11. For more information and to purchase tickets, call the box office at (401) 351-4242 or visit Trinity Rep's website at www.trinityrep.com.

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