CAMP DAVID Opens Tonight at The Old Globe

The Old Globe presents the Arena Stage production of Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright's thrilling new play CAMP DAVID, directed by Arena Stage's artistic director, Molly Smith.

The West Coast premiere of CAMP DAVID will run now through June 19, 2016 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Opening night is tonight, May 20 at 8:00 p.m.

From The Twenty-seventh Man to Golda's Balcony to Allegiance, The Old Globe boasts a rich legacy of exploring significant moments in recent history on its stages. Now a new play, CAMP DAVID, offers a you-are-there view of a great historical achievement whose legacy continues to resonate nearly 40 years later. In the tumultuous 1970s, Middle East peace seemed as remote a prospect as it does today. Yet during 13 extraordinary days in 1978, two world leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, under the watchful and sometimes exasperated eyes of U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, hammered out an agreement that inspired the entire world. Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower, HBO's Going Clear) brings us a riveting and moving story filled with humor, insight, and surprises, as three very different men, each devoutly committed to his people and also to his faith, find that peace is possible and that hope is always the better choice.

CAMP DAVID had its world premiere at Washington, DC's Arena Stage in 2014 and was seen in a special reading by its original cast in June 2016 as part of Carter Center Weekend in Vail, Colorado.

The cast includes Broadway veteran Ned Eisenberg (Awake and Sing!, Golden Boy) as Menachem Begin, Tony and Emmy Award nominee Hallie Foote (Dividing the Estate on Broadway and at the Globe) as Rosalynn Carter, award-winning Egyptian actor and activist Khaled Nabawy (Kingdom of Heaven, Fair Game) as Anwar Sadat, and Emmy Award winner Richard Thomas (Othello at the Globe, "The Waltons") as Jimmy Carter.

The creative team includes Walt Spangler (Scenic Design), Paul Tazewell (Costume Design), Pat Collins (Lighting Design), David Van Tieghem (Original Music and Sound Design), Jeff Sugg (Projection Design), David Huber (Vocal Coach), Geoff Josselson, CSA (Casting), Susan R. White and Peter Van Dyke (Production Stage Managers), and Gerald Rafshoon (Producer).

"CAMP DAVID tells a story that's forty years old and at the same time is as fresh as this morning's headlines," said Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. "The issues that Carter, Begin, and Sadat wrestled with in 1978 still roil the Middle East today. Lawrence Wright's exciting and moving play reminds us, in vividly theatrical terms, that peace is not some miracle but is instead the fruit of hard, risk-taking work by bold and visionary leaders. I am honored to have Wright at the Globe and to hold a public conversation with him. And I cannot wait to have the estimable Molly Smith's extraordinary cast on our stage. In particular I'm delighted to introduce California audiences to a great international star in Khaled Nabawy, and I'm very, very happy to welcome my friend, the brilliant Richard Thomas, back to our stage. This is a special show, and I know San Diego will find it a powerful and entertaining evening in the theatre."

Tickets to CAMP DAVID start at $29 and can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE, or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

CAST & CREATIVE BIOGRAPHIES:

Ned Eisenberg (Menachem Begin) has appeared on Broadway in Rocky, Golden Boy, Awake and Sing! (Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Revival of a Play), and The Green Bird. His Off Broadway credits include Finks (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Iago in Othello (Lucille Lortel Award nomination), Fagin in Oliver Twist, and the title role in King John (Theatre for a New Audience), Rocket to the Moon (The Peccadillo Theater Company), and Meshugah (Naked Angels). His regional credits include Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls (Long Wharf Theatre), The Middle of Nowhere (Prince Music Theater), Street Scene and Six Degrees of Separation (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Piece of My Heart (New York Stage and Film), and Broadway: Three Generations (The Kennedy Center). Eisenberg has appeared in the films Experimenter, Won't Back Down, Limitless, Flags of Our Fathers, World Trade Center, and Million Dollar Baby. His television credits include "Criminal Justice," "The Good Wife," "The Mysteries of Laura," "Person of Interest," "30 Rock," "Blue Bloods," "White Collar," and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and Naked Angels.

Hallie Foote (Rosalynn Carter) last appeared at the Globe in Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. She was most recently seen in Horton Foote's The Old Friends at Alley Theatre and CAMP DAVID at Arena Stage. Her Broadway credits include Dividing the Estate (Tony Award nomination). For Signature Theatre Company, she appeared in The Old Friends, Horton Foote's masterwork The Orphans' Home Cycle (co-production with Hartford Stage), The Trip to Bountiful (Lucille Lortel Award), The Last of the Thorntons, and the 1994-1995 season of Horton Foote plays-Talking Pictures, Night Seasons, and Laura Dennis (Drama Desk Award). Her other Off Broadway credits include Daisy Foote's Him and When They Speak of Rita and Horton Foote's The Day Emily Married (Primary Stages), The Roads to Home (The Lamb's Theatre Company, Obie Award), and The Widow Claire (Circle in the Square Downtown). She has appeared in the films Paranormal Activity 3, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, On Valentine's Day, 1918, Courtship, The Habitation of Dragons, and Alone. She served as producer of the Broadway revival of The Trip to Bountiful and the Showtime movie of Lily Dale, and she was executive producer of the Lifetime movie of The Trip To Bountiful.

Khaled Nabawy (Anwar Sadat), an Egyptian actor and activist, graduated with honors in acting from the Academy of Arts in Cairo. Nabawy burst onto the Egyptian cinema scene in legendary director Youssef Chahine's film Al-mohager (The Emigrant), earning him the All African Film Award for Best Actor and garnering the attention of audiences and the respect of film critics. He went on to collaborate on two of Chahine's subsequent films. Nabawy has won multiple awards for his work in Egypt including Best Supporting Actor at the Cairo International Film Festival in 1998 and Best Young Actor at the 100 Years of Cinema Film Festival in 1996. After great success in Egypt, starring in more than 20 films and 10 television series along with three theatrical plays, Nabawy earned his first Hollywood role in Ridley Scott's 2005 blockbuster film Kingdom of Heaven, making him the first Arab leading actor to join Hollywood cinema since the great Omar Sharif. In 2010 he worked alongside Sean Penn and Naomi Watts in the critically acclaimed and award-winning film Fair Game. He made his theatrical debut in the U.S. last March in CAMP DAVID at Arena Stage in Wasghington, DC.

Richard Thomas (Jimmy Carter) recently starred as Iago in Othello for the Globe's 2014 Summer Shakespeare Festival. He starred in the award-winning series "The Waltons," for which he won an Emmy Award for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and has continued to star in series, films, plays, and over 50 movies for television. His theatre career began at age seven in 1958 with Broadway's Sunrise at Campobello and continued with Fifth of July, The Seagull, The Front Page, Tiny Alice, Peer Gynt, Richard II, Richard III, Hamlet, The Stendhal Syndrome, Democracy, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, 12 Angry Men (national Broadway tour), Terrence McNally's Unusual Acts of Devotion, and David Mamet's Race, as well as Timon of Athens (The Public Theater), Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays (Minetta Lane Theatre), and An Enemy of the People (Manhattan Theatre Club). Thomas also starred in "Just Cause," "It's a Miracle," and "The Adventures of Swiss Family Robinson." His television films include Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes and It, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Silence, The Red Badge of Courage, The Master of Ballantrae, Johnny Belinda, Berlin Tunnel 21, Living Proof: The Hank Williams, Jr. Story, Hobson's Choice, Roots: The Next Generations, Go Toward the Light, In the Name of the People, The Christmas Secret, Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Annie's Point, Wild Hearts, and Hallmark's Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Thomas produced What Love Sees and For All Time for television, and he can currently be seen as Agent Frank Gaad on FX's "The Americans." He appeared in the films The Wonder Boys, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Todd Killings, Last Summer, Winning, Red Sky at Morning, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, and the forthcoming Anesthesia. Thomas created the role of Jimmy Carter in CAMP DAVID at Arena Stage and was most recently seen in You Can't Take It with You on Broadway and Incident at Vichy at Signature Theatre Company in New York.

Lawrence Wright (Playwright) is a longtime writer for The New Yorker and the author of nine books, including Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, which was recently adapted into an acclaimed HBO documentary. His most recent book, Thirteen Days in September, emerged from the play CAMP DAVID and was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2014; listed as number 5 on Amazon.com's Editors' Picks for the Best Books of 2014; and made NPR's list of 2014's Great Reads, Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2014, and Publishers Weekly 10 Best Books of 2014. His book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 won the Pulitzer Prize and was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 best nonfiction books ever written. He was the co-writer of the screenplay for the 1998 movie The Siege starring Denzel Washington and Annette Bening, and he also wrote Noriega: God's Favorite starring Bob Hoskins for television. He has written and performed two one-man shows: My Trip to Al-Qaeda, which he performed Off Broadway and at The Kennedy Center in 2007, and which was made into a movie for HBO; and The Human Scale, which Wright performed in New York and Tel Aviv. His play CAMP DAVID received its world premiere at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, in 2014, and in the year prior Fallaci was staged by Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Wright lives in Austin, Texas, where he plays the keyboards in a blues band, WhoDo.

Molly Smith (Director) has served as Artistic Director of Arena Stage since 1998. Her directing credits there include Oliver!, The Originalist, Fiddler on the Roof, CAMP DAVID, Mother Courage and Her Children, Oklahoma!, A Moon for the Misbegotten, My Fair Lady, The Great White Hope, The Music Man, Orpheus Descending, Legacy of Light, The Women of Brewster Place, Cabaret, An American Daughter, South Pacific, Agamemnon and His Daughters, Coyote Builds North America, All My Sons, and How I Learned to Drive. Her directorial work has also been seen at the Shaw Festival in Canada, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Centaur Theatre in Montreal, and Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska, which she founded and ran from 1979 to 1998. Smith has been a leader in new play development for over 30 years. She is a great believer in first, second, and third productions of new works and has championed projects like How I Learned to Drive; Passion Play, a cycle; and Next to Normal. She has worked alongside playwrights Sarah Ruhl, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, Lawrence Wright, Karen Zacarías, John Murrell, Eric Coble, Charles Randolph-Wright, and many others. She led the reinvention of Arena Stage, focusing on the architecture and creation of the Mead Center for American Theater and positioning Arena Stage as a national center for American artists. During her time with the company, Arena Stage has workshopped more than 100 productions, produced 36 world premieres, staged numerous second and third productions, and been an important part of nurturing seven projects that went on to have a life on Broadway. In 2014, Smith made her Broadway debut directing The Velocity of Autumn following its critically acclaimed run at Arena Stage. She was awarded honorary doctorates from American University and Towson University.

The Tony Award-winning Old Globe is one of the country's leading professional regional theatres and has stood as San Diego's flagship arts institution for over 80 years. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and Managing Director Michael G. Murphy, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 15 productions of classic, contemporary, and new works on its three Balboa Park stages: the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the 600-seat Old Globe Theatre and the 250-seat Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, both part of The Old Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, and the 605-seat outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, home of its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people attend Globe productions annually and participate in the theatre's education and community programs. Numerous world premieres such as the 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Bright Star, Allegiance, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and the annual holiday musical Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to enjoy highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country.

Pictured: (top) Hallie Foote as Rosalynn Carter and Khaled Nabawy as Anwar Sadat in CAMP DAVID at Arena Stage, 2014. Photo by Teresa Wood.

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