Woolly Mammoth Theatre Presents GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES 5/17-6/13

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues its 30 th Season (2009/10) with a four-week run of Gruesome Playground Injuries, created by the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-nominated Rajiv Joseph (playwright of Animals Out of Paper and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo ) and directed by John Vreeke. Gruesome Playground Injuries stars Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey and Tim Getman.

"Its unaffected humor and deep sympathy exerts a peculiar power to involve us" -Houston ChronicleGruesome Playground Injuries performances will run at Woolly Mammoth May 17-June 13, 2010, with Pay-What-You-Can performances on May 17 and 18 at 8pm.  

Two eight-year-olds' lives collide in the nurse's office: Doug rode his bike off the roof and Kayleen can't stop throwing up. As they mature from accident-prone kids to self-destructive adults, their broken hearts and broKen Bones draw them ever closer. These two rebels may only be fit for one another. But how far can one person go to heal another's wounds?

PLAYWRIGHT

Rajiv Joseph (Playwright) is a Pulitzer Prize-nominee. This is the first time that his work is being produced by Woolly Mammoth. His play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was produced this past spring by the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles at the Kirk Douglas Theatre under the direction of Moisés Kaufman. Center Theatre Group is remounting that production this spring at the Mark Taper Forum. Bengal Tiger was awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. Joseph's New York productions include Animals Out of Paper, Second Stage Theatre, summer 2008; The Leopard and the Fox (adaptation), Alter Ego, fall 2007; Huck & Holden, Cherry Lane Theatre, 2006; All This Intimacy, Second Stage Theatre, 2006. Last spring, Joseph was awarded the Paula Vogel Award by the Vineyard Theatre and last winter he received the 2009 Kesselring Fellowship. He is a Founding Member of the New York-based Theatre Company, The FireDepartment, and is a former Lark Playwriting Fellow and Dramatist Guild Fellow. He received his BA in Creative Writing from Miami University and his MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

DIRECTOR

JOHN VREEKE (Director) has been based in Washington DC for the past nine years. He directed Heroes for Metro Stage, which shared the award for Best Ensemble at the Helen Hayes this year. For Woolly, he directed Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's Boom, which received four Helen Hayes nominations including director and production; the hugely popular production of The K of D by Laura Schellhardt; and Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis, which received four Helen Hayes nominations. He directed Homebody/Kabul at Theater J and Our Lady of 121 st Street at the Kennedy Center, both for Woolly Mammoth. He directed the critically acclaimed and Helen Hayes-nominated production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at H Street Theater/Forum Theater and he received positive critical notice and an extended run of sold-out shows for his re-invention of Fiddler on the Roof for Olney Theatre in Maryland and directed Karen Zacarias' new children's play Chasing George Washington for the Family Theater at the Kennedy Center and subsequent national tour. He has two Helen Hayes Nominations for his adaptation and direction of Lady Chatterley's Lover for Washington Shakespeare Company, which he originally adapted with Mary Machala for Book-It Repertory Theater in Seattle in 1997.

For Theater J he directed Born Guilty, which earned him another Helen Hayes nomination; a new adaptation by Ari Roth of Chekhov's The Seagull; Dorfman's Death and the Maiden; a new novel/play by Joyce Carol Oates, the Tattooed Girl; and the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's Bal Masque a critically acclaimed production of Tiny Alice and Death and the Kings Horseman for WSC; Opus and Red Herring for Everyman Theatre; Heroes, One Good Marriage, and For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again at Metro stage; The Monument and Drunk Enough to Say I Love You for H Street, The Caretaker for the Salt Lake Acting Company. This winter he directed Dying City by Christopher Shinn for Seattle Public Theater to critical acclaim. During the nineties in Seattle he was the associate producer and casting associate for the CBS-TV series Northern Exposure. Now in its 30 th Season, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues to hold its place as a theatre that produces leading edge work. Acknowledged as, "the hottest theatre company in town" (The Washington Post), "known for its productions of innovative new plays" (The New York Times), Woolly Mammoth is a national leader in the development of new plays, and one of the best known and most influentiAl Small theatres in America.

The Company garnered this reputation by holding fast to its mission: ...to ignite an explosive engagement between theatre artists and the community by developing, producing, and promoting new plays that explore The Edges of theatrical style and human experience, and by implementing new ways to use the artistry of theatre to serve the people of Greater Washington, DC. Currently under the leadership of Shalwitz and Managing Director Jeffrey Herrmann, Woolly Mammoth is a member of the National New Play Network, Theatre Communications Group, The League of Washington Theatres, and The Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, and a participant in the A-ha! Program: Think it, Do it, funded by MetLife and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre. The Theatre's programs are supported in part by The National Endowment for the Arts, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program/UnitedStates Commission of Fine Arts, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

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