Whitney Bashor (The Bridges of Madison County), Marc delaCruz (If/Then), Sarah Lynn Marion & Kyle Sherman to star in Keen Company's Ordinary Days

Keen Company
Announces Cast for
ORDINARY DAYS:
Whitney Bashor (The Bridges of Madison County), Marc delaCruz (If/Then), Sarah Lynn Marion (2013 Jimmy Award Winner), and Kyle Sherman (Pete the Cat)

New Orchestrations by Tony® and Drama Desk Award Winner Bruce Coughlin

 Tickets for the First Preview October 2nd Will Be Only $25  

 

Today Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein announced the cast for Keen’s fourth musical, the first NY revival of Adam Gwon’s acclaimed Ordinary Days: Whitney Bashor (The Bridges of Madison County), Marc delaCruz (If/Then), Sarah Lynn Marion (2013 Jimmy awards winner), and Kyle Sherman (Pete the Cat) will star. Charles Isherwood, in the The New York Times, said of the original production “Ordinary Days introduces a promising newcomer to our talent-hungry musical theater, the composer and lyricist Adam Gwon. Mr. Gwon writes crisp, fluid and often funny lyrics that reflect the racing minds of the four New Yorkers on a nervous search for their immediate future. Ordinary Days captures with stinging clarity that uneasy moment in youth when doubts begin to cloud hopes for a future of unlimited possibility.”

Ordinary Days will have new orchestrations especially created for Keen by Bruce Coughlin (Tony Award® and Drama Desk Award winner for The Light in the Piazza; Tony Award® nominations for Grey Gardens and Urinetown; numerous Drama Desk Award nominations including War Paint, Giant, Grey Gardens, Urinetown, The Sound of Music, and Floyd Collins). John Bell (On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof, Keen’s Marry Me A Little) will serve as Musical Director. Ordinary Days will have scenic design by Steven Kemp, costume design by Jennifer Paar, lighting design by Anshuman Bhatia, and sound design by Alex Hawthorn.

“I am so thrilled to start rehearsals for our revival of Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days with this wonderfully talented cast. Adam writes complex and distinctive characters and each of these actors bring their own unique gifts to his work. I am also eagerly anticipating getting back in the room with John Bell, my friend and colleague who was an integral part to creating our beautiful production of Marry Me a Little. And adding the gifted Bruce Coughlin into the mix to create new orchestrations will ensure our production will be a truly original version of Adam’s gorgeous musical.”

From the company that brought the acclaimed revivals of Marry Me a Little, John and Jen,and Tick, Tick…BOOM! comes Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, a refreshingly humorous and inspiring musical about making simple connections in a chaotic city. Written by one of musical theater's most exciting new composers, Ordinary Days tells the story of four young New Yorkers whose lives intersect in unexpected ways as they search for success, happiness, love, and taxis. Peter Marks in The Washington Post declared “If life really were more like a musical, you’d be contented if that life percolated as vibrantly as doesOrdinary Days, Adam Gwon’s sweet, fleet and tender survey of four youngish New Yorkers, fighting through the emotional noise and dramatic traffic to arrive at a clearer sense of who they are and what they want to be. It’s a beguiling little tale, set to Gwon’s effervescent, urban-romantic melodies… Gwon’s 19 songs are the evening’s sole engine. They’re lyrically witty and rich enough in narrative and character detail to power the dual plots of the musical. It’s the kind of unadorned musical that feels like such a fresh alternative to most of the overproduced stuff on Broadway.”

Whitney Bashor appeared on Broadway in The Bridges of Madison County, garnering the Clarence Derwent Award. National Tour: Whistle Down the Wind.  Off-Broadway: The Fantasticks, Himself and Nora. Regional: The Bridges of Madison County (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Beaches (Drury Lane Theatre), Merrily We Roll Along (Wallis Annenberg Theatre: LA Ovation Nominee), Fly By Night (Dallas Theatre Center), Light in the Piazza (Philadelphia Theatre Company: Barrymore Award Winner), Unsinkable Molly Brown (St Louis MUNY), Diner (Signature Theatre), Edges (Original Company; Capital Repertory Theatre). Concerts: Boston Pops (Tanglewood, Ted Sperling), An Evening of Music with Marvin Hamlisch (Library of Congress, Ted Sperling), Adam Guettel (54 Below), Jason Robert Brown (54 Below). TV: “Law & Order SVU”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “Love Monkey”, “All My Children”.  Film: Off the Black.  BFA University of Michigan.  Follow @bashorw on Instagram.

Marc delaCruz: Broadway: If/Then. Off-Broadway/New York: Three Days to See(Transport Group), Pacific Overtures (Classic Stage Company), Prison Dancer (NYMF),Oklahoma! (National Asian Artists Project). Tour/International: If/Then (David), Where Elephants Weep, The Wedding Banquet, Disney’s High School Musical. Regional:Vietgone (Quang, Studio Theatre), Next to Normal (Dan, Tantrum Theater), Allegiance(The Old Globe), work with San Jose Rep, North Carolina Theatre, ReAct, Northwest Asian American Theatre, the 5th Avenue Theatre, and Village Theatre.

Sarah Lynn Marion is making her New York debut. Last summer she was seen in All Shook Up at The MUNY. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a BFA in Musical Theatre, where her credits included Ursula in Disney's The Little Mermaid and Daniel in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised]. First Place Musical Theatre Pre-Professional Division for the Classical Singer Vocal Competition and winner of the Jimmy Award, the Jerry Herman Award, and the JRAY for High School Musical Theatre.

Kyle Sherman is making his Theatre Row and Keen Company debut. Recent credits include Off-Broadway's Pete the Cat (Pete), For the Record: The Brat Pack (The Geek),From Pilgrim Landing (Jacob), Rosie Revere (Iggy Peck), as well as concert appearances at Feinstein’s/54 Below. Kyle is a Graduate of Northwestern University. Follow @kshermanatorr on Instagram and Twitter.

Adam Gwon is an award-winning composer and lyricist whose musicals have been produced on five continents, in more than half a dozen languages. Off-Broadway: Ordinary Days (Roundabout), Old Jews Telling Jokes (Westside Theatre); Regional: String (Village Theatre), Cake Off (Signature Theatre, Helen Hayes Award nomination; Bucks County Playhouse), Cloudlands (South Coast Rep), The Boy Detective Fails (Signature Theatre),Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma); West End: Ordinary Days (Trafalgar Studios). Adam’s songs have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and more, by such luminaries as Audra McDonald, Kelli O’Hara, and Brian d’Arcy James. Honors include the Kleban Award, Fred Ebb Award, Richard Rodgers Award, Frederick Loewe Award, Second Stage Theatre’s Donna Perret Rosen Award, Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, ASCAP Harold Adamson Award, and the MAC John Wallowitch Award, as well as commissions from Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre, South Coast Rep, and Broadway Across America. Recordings include:Ordinary Days (Ghostlight Records), Audra McDonald’s Go Back Home (Nonesuch), The Essential Liz Callaway (Working Girl Records), Tracy Lynn Olivera’s Because, and Over the Moon: The Broadway Lullaby Album. Adam has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the O’Neill Music Theater Conference, and the Dramatists Guild.

Performances for this limited Off-Broadway engagement of Ordinary Days, directed by Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein, will begin Tuesday, October 2nd, and continue through November 17th only, with opening night set for Wednesday, October 17th. Additional matinees on Wednesdays November 7th and November 14th at 2pm.

Coming this Spring to Keen: the Off-Broadway premiere of Surely Goodness and Mercybeginning February 27th and continuing through April 14th only, with opening night set for March 13th. Cast and design team will be announced shortly.

Keen Company creates theater that provokes identification, reflection, and emotional connection. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, we tell wholehearted stories about people striving to do their best and the decisive moments that change us. Keen has been honored with eleven Drama Desk nominations, two Drama Desk Awards, two Drama League nominations, and two Obie Awards.

All performances will be at Theatre Row, a program of Building for the Arts NY Inc., (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) and will be Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7pm; Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; and Sunday matinees at 3pm.  Tickets for Ordinary Days will be $75; premium tickets will be $90. (All ticket prices include restoration fees.) Tickets for the first performance only on Tuesday October 2nd will be $25.

Save over 35% off full price tickets with a subscription package for both shows of the season for only $100 which includes unlimited exchange privileges, invitations to Keen Company readings, and admission to Keen Teens Festival of New Work!  Subscribers also get free invitations to Keen’s Play Club discussion series, discounts on the purchase of cast recordings of Keen’s acclaimed productions of Marry Me a Little and John & Jen, as well as advance notice and discounted tickets to The Playwrights Lab Series and Keen Company’s Annual Gala.

Keen patrons 30 or under see both shows for just $25 each with a KEENConnect Subscription at only $50. That's all the perks of a regular subscription for the price of a rush ticket! Save over 65% off the full ticket price! (Please note, government issued ID must be presented at box office).

Individual tickets and subscriptions are on sale NOW! To purchase single tickets, visit the Theatre Row Box Office (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues), online at Telecharge.com, or call 212-239-6200. For subscriptions, please visit www.keencompany.org/subscribe.

For more information, visit www.keencompany.org

PLAYBILL presents the Cast of Shaw's Heartbreak House

Gingold Theatrical Group presents a new adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House at Theatre Row beginning August 28. The comedy, which had its U.S. premiere in 1920, brings an eclectic mix of people together over a weekend in the English countryside to make major decisions about their future.

Heartbreak House will officially open September 9 at Theatre Row. The adaptation is by Gingold Artistic Director David Staller, who also directs.

Staller directs a cast made up of a number of Broadway veterans, including Tony winner Karen Ziemba, Tony nominees Alison Fraser, Tom Hewitt, and Derek Smith, as well as Raphael Nash Thompson, Jeff Hiller, Kimberly Immanuel, and Lenny Wolpe.

The limited engagement is scheduled to run through September 29.

Take a Sneak Peek at Shakespeare’s saga of a nation spinning out of control - NAATCO's Henry VI, Shakespeare's Trilogy in two parts, now in previews

FOR A SNEAK PEEK, you can download new hi res images here

 

Experience Shakespeare’s saga of a nation spinning wildly out of control!
 
NAATCO, The National Asian American Theatre Company,
Kicks Off Their 28th Season with
Henry VI
Shakespeare's Trilogy in Two Parts:
Part 1: Foreign Wars
Part 2: Civil Strife
 
Adapted & Directed by Stephen Brown-Fried
 
Previews Now!
 

The OBIE Award-winning NAATCO, National Asian American Theatre Company, kicks off their 28th season with Stephen Brown-Fried’s new adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry VI. This Off-Broadway limited engagement at the Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theaters (502 West 53rd Street at Tenth Avenue) will open Tuesday August 21st (Part 1) and Wednesday August 22nd (Part 2).  Performances continue through September 8th only.

Brown-Fried directs a cast that will include Rajesh Bose (Indian Ink, Disgraced), Ron Domingo (OBIE Award-winner for The Romance of Magno Rubio); John D. Haggerty (Les Miserables - Broadway and National Tour); Wai Ching Ho (Madame Gao in the Marvel Cinematic Universe/Netflix series Daredevil, Iron Fist and The Defenders); David Huynh (No-No Boy - Pan Asian Rep,  The Cherry Orchard - Moscow Art Theatre); Michelangelo Hyeon (NYC debut); Anna Ishida (Beowulf —A Thousand Years of Baggage by Jason Craig/Dave Malloy - featured in The New Yorker’s “Top 12 Best Off-Broadway Shows”); Paul Juhn (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt;” The Good Person of Szechwan -The Public Theater/The Foundry Theatre; White Chocolate -The Culture Project); Vanessa Kai (2018 Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, KPop - A.R.T./NY Theatres), Mahira Kakkar (TFNA's Winter's Tale), Mia Katigbak (Obie Award - Awake & Sing!; Lucille Lortel Award and Lee Reynolds Award from League of Professional Theatre Women; Actors Equity’s Rosetta LeNoire Award); Jon Norman Schneider (House Rules - Ma-Yi, Awake and Sing! - NAATCO at Walkerspace and the Public Theater, The Oldest Boy - Lincoln Center Theater, Durango - Public Theater/NYSF), James Seol (2018 Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical, KPop - A.R.T./NY Theatres), David Shih (“Blindspot” – NBC, KPop - A.R.T./NY Theatres, Somebody's Daughter – Second Stage, Awake and Sing! - NAATCO at Walkerspace and the Public Theater); Sophia Skiles (A Dream Play, The Seagull, The House of Bernarda Alba – NAATCO); and Kim Wong (The Public's Henry V).

“Shakespeare’s Henry VI is the story of a great nation’s decent into barbarism and cruelty.  It is a study of how the experience of a problematic foreign war erodes civil discourse at home, and how that erosion allows political self-interests to take hold and send a country hurtling into civil war. The play’s resonances with our world today are terrifying; it serves as a cautionary fable on the fragility of empire, and on the horrors that human beings are capable of enacting. The fact that this story will be told by NAATCO with an entirely Asian American cast vastly expands the project’s significance.  A story can be made to resonate and radiate with new power when it’s told by actors who don’t look the way the audience may have expected the characters to look. It contributes to an ongoing nationwide examination of who we, as theatre-makers, endow with the right to speak for all of America,” said Mr. Brown-Fried.

Stephen Brown-Fried directed NAATCO's award-winning production of Awake and Sing! (Walkerspace/The Public Theatre, Drama League Nomination: Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play), as well as Macbeth (Northern Stage), Misalliance, All's Well That Ends Well and Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare Theatre of NJ), Richard III, Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado About Nothing (Trinity Shakespeare) and other productions at Ensemble Studio Theatre, NY Theatre Workshop's 4th Street Theater, Sundance Theatre Lab, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Illinois Shakespeare and at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, as well as at training programs including The Yale School of Drama, NYU/Tisch Graduate Acting, SMU/Meadows School of the Arts, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, The University of Miami, and Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the Associate Director of Gingold Theatrical Group, where he created and leads the company's Speakers' Corner New Works Lab as well as the company's education initiatives.  He holds a BA in History and Drama from Stanford University, an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama, is Head of Directing at The New School College of Performing Arts, School of Drama, and is a Lecturer in Directing at The Yale School of Drama.

Henry VI will have scenic design by Kimie Nishikawa, costume design by Nicole Slaven, lighting design by Reza Behjat, sound design by Toby Algya, and prop design by Ryo Tatsumi. Orlando Pabotoy and Kimiye Corwin will serve as movement directors. Peter Kim is Associate Producer for NAATCO.

Under the leadership of Founding Artistic Producing Director Mia Katigbak and co-founder Richard Eng, NAATCO was founded in 1989 to assert the presence and significance of Asian American theatre in the United States, demonstrating its vital contributions to the fabric of American culture by offering European and American classics as written with all Asian American casts; adaptations of these classics by Asian American playwrights; and new plays - preferably world premieres - written by non-Asian Americans, not for or about Asian Americans, but realized by all-Asian American casts. NAATCO puts into service its total commitment to Asian American theatre artists to more accurately represent onstage the multi- and inter-cultural dynamics of our society. By doing so, they demonstrate a rich tapestry of cultural difference bound by the American experience. The enrichment accrues to each different culture as well as to America as a whole. NAATCO performs this chosen repertory as written, with no forced Asian cultural associations. The repertory's importance comes not only through the valuable training it provides for theatrical craft, but also from its ability to reach across ethnic boundaries to illuminate abiding characteristics of human nature.  The superimposition of Asian faces on a non-Asian repertory, interpreted by artists using diverse and truly universal references to serve the text very faithfully, reflects and emphasizes the kinship among disparate cultures. “We do not say we are all the same, we say that we have quite large areas of understanding. We also say that affirmations of timeless values and new insights about old works can come from unexpected faces.” NAATCO was the recipient of the Obies’ Ross Wetzsteon Award, the Lucille Lortel Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women for their work “highlighting the multi- and intercultural dynamics of our society” and the Rosetta LeNoire Award from Actors' Equity Association in recognition of its contribution toward increasing diversity and non-traditional casting in American theatre. For more information, visit www.naatco.org.

Performances for Part 1 will be Tuesday and Thursday at 7:00 pm, and Saturday & Sunday matinees at 2:00; Part 2 will be performed Wednesday Friday, Saturday & Sunday evenings at 7:00.  Tickets for all seats for all performances are $45, with special packages for both parts, and may be purchased at www.naatco.org or by calling 866-811-4111.

For more information, visit www.naatco.org

 

Keen Company Announces Its 19th Season

Drama Desk and Obie Award-Winning

Keen Company

Announces Its 19th Season:

 

ORDINARY DAYS

Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon

Directed by Jonathan Silverstein

 

“A quietly affecting show... Mr. Gwon writes crisp, fluid and funny lyrics. Ordinary Days captures with stinging clarity that uneasy moment in youth when doubts begin to cloud hopes for a future of unlimited possibility.” — The New York Times

  

Limited Engagement Begins October 2nd

 

and

 

SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY

by Chisa Hutchinson

Directed by Jessi D. Hill

 

“Ms. Hutchinson has a sharp ear for dialogue… (a) dry, roguish, gutsy voice” – New York Times

  

Limited Engagement Begins February 26th

 

Today Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein announced his plans for the upcoming season: “I am thrilled to announce Keen Company’s 19th season, two uplifting stories about the big impact of small actions. This fall Keen will produce our fourth intimate musical, the first NY revival of Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days. I’ve been a fan of Adam’s work for years and am so excited to work with him to bring this beloved musical to life in a brand new production with new orchestrations. Ordinary Days beautifully depicts the search for connection and how one person’s actions can influence complete strangers. In the spring we will present the New York premiere of Surely Goodness and Mercy, a truly Keen story about an exceptional boy living a troubled life in Newark, NJ who does a good deed for an often unnoticed person. Chisa is a rare writer who speaks to our complicated times today with a full heart and a singular voice. I am thrilled to welcome her into the Keen family,” said Silverstein.

From the company that brought you the acclaimed revivals of Marry Me a Little, John and Jen,and Tick, Tick…BOOM! comes Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, a refreshingly humorous and inspiring musical about making simple connections in a chaotic city. Written by one of musical theater's most exciting new composers, Ordinary Days tells the story of four young New Yorkers whose lives intersect in unexpected ways as they search for success, happiness, love, and taxis. The Washington Post declared “If life really were more like a musical, you’d be contented if that life percolated as vibrantly as does Ordinary Days, Adam Gwon’s sweet, fleet and tender survey of four youngish New Yorkers, fighting through the emotional noise and dramatic traffic to arrive at a clearer sense of who they are and what they want to be.”

“Having my first revival feels like a milestone. I've seen all of Keen's musical revivals over the years, from Marry Me a Little to Tick...Tick...Boom, and I'm honored they've chosen to produceOrdinary Days alongside these intimate musicals I've loved for so long. It's a show with New York City at its heart, and I can't wait to share it with a whole new audience here,” said Gown.

Adam Gwon is an award-winning composer and lyricist whose musicals have been produced on five continents, in more than half a dozen languages. Off-Broadway: Ordinary Days(Roundabout), Old Jews Telling Jokes (Westside Theatre); Regional: String (Village Theatre),Cake Off (Signature Theatre, Helen Hayes Award nomination; Bucks County Playhouse),Cloudlands (South Coast Rep), The Boy Detective Fails (Signature Theatre), Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma); West End: Ordinary Days (Trafalgar Studios). Adam’s songs have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and more, by such luminaries as Audra McDonald, Kelli O’Hara, and Brian d’Arcy James. Honors include the Kleban Award, Fred Ebb Award, Richard Rodgers Award, Frederick Loewe Award, Second Stage Theatre’s Donna Perret Rosen Award, Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, ASCAP Harold Adamson Award, and the MAC John Wallowitch Award, as well as commissions from Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre, South Coast Rep, and Broadway Across America. Recordings include: Ordinary Days (Ghostlight Records), Audra McDonald’s Go Back Home(Nonesuch), The Essential Liz Callaway (Working Girl Records), Tracy Lynn Olivera’s Because, and Over the Moon: The Broadway Lullaby Album. Adam has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the O’Neill Music Theater Conference, and the Dramatists Guild.

Performances for this limited Off-Broadway engagement of Ordinary Days, directed by Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein, will begin Tuesday, October 2nd, and continue through November 17th only, with opening night set for Wednesday, October 17th. Additional matinees on Wednesdays November 7th and November 14th at 2pm. Cast and design team to be announced later.

Surely Goodness and Mercy has spent the last year charming audiences across the country: “Notably absent from Hutchinson's frank and sobering story: cynicism” – Chicago Reader; “(Surely Goodness and Mercy has) a soul-stirring quality, touching audiences with its sincerity” – Daily Utah Chronicle; “it's impossible not to like it” - The Salt Lake Tribune.

Now, Keen is honored to bring this big-hearted new play to New York for the first time. Set in an under-funded public school in Newark, this vibrant new play by emerging playwright Chisa Hutchinson, tells the story of a bible-toting boy with a photographic memory who befriends the cantankerous old lunch lady. Against all odds, Tino and Bernadette help each other through the mess of growing up and growing old. “When I met with Jonathan and he told me about the kind of work that Keen likes to do-- stuff that's an uplift, but for like grown-ass realists who know that happy endings are hard-won and rare-- I felt so honored and encouraged that they saw my play fitting into that mission. And New York is a city full of grown-ass realists so I'm very ready to bring Surely Goodness and Mercy here with Keen,” said Chisa. Jessi D. Hill (Cusi Cram'sThe Helpers at 59E59, Melissa Li & Kit Yan’s Interstate - NYMF, Kit Yan's Queer Heartache - A.R.T, Larissa FastHorse's Vanishing Point - HERE Arts Center, Jackob Hoffman's A Persistent Memory - Theatre Row, Topher Paine's Medicine Showdown - 4th St. Theatre at NYTW, Alicia Jo Rabins' A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff - Joe's Pub) will direct.

Chisa Hutchinson is a New York-based playwright who has happily presented her plays, which include Dirt Rich, She Like Girls, This Is Not The Play, Sex On Sunday, Tunde’s Trumpet, The Subject, Somebody’s Daughter, Alondra Was Here, Surely Goodness and Mercy, From The Author Of, Amerikin and Dead & Breathing at such venues as the Lark Theater, SummerStage, Atlantic Theater Company, Rattlestick Theater, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the National Black Theatre, Salt Lake Acting Company, Writers’ Theatre of New Jersey, Delaware REP, Second Stage Theater and Arch 468 in London. She has been a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Lark Fellow, a Resident at Second Stage Theater, a Humanitas Fellow, a New York NeoFuturist, and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group. She's also won a GLAAD Award, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, the Paul Green Award, a Helen Merrill Award, the Lanford Wilson Award, and has been a finalist for the highly coveted PoNY Fellowship. Lately, Chisa's been venturing into film and is presently working mercenary-style on two screenplays, one for A&E/Lifetime and the another spearheaded by Simon Cowell for Sony, and entering pre-production for two indie film projects. And while she’s flexing new muscles, she figured she may as well accept a commission from Audible to write radio play. She'll never give up live theater, though, no matter how little it pays, so in addition to being a Fellow at Primary Stages and a proud fifth-year member of New Dramatists, Chisa is currently gearing up for two NYC theater productions and settling down to write a revenge play about white folks who call the police on black folks commissioned by South Coast Rep. BA, Vassar College; MFA, NYU - Tisch School of the Arts. To learn more, visit www.chisahutchinson.com .

Performances for this limited Off-Broadway engagement of Surely Goodness and Mercy will begin Tuesday February 27th and continue through Saturday April 14th only, with opening night set for Wednesday March 13th. Additional matinee on Wednesday April 11th at 2pm. Cast and design team will be announced shortly.

Keen Company creates theater that provokes identification, reflection, and emotional connection. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, we tell wholehearted stories about people striving to do their best and the decisive moments that change us. Keen has been honored with eleven Drama Desk nominations, two Drama Desk Awards, two Drama League nominations, and two Obie Awards.

All performances will be at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) and will be Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7pm; Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; and Sunday matinees at 3pm.  Tickets for Ordinary Days will be $75; premium tickets will be $90. Tickets for Surely Goodness and Mercy will be $65; premium tickets will be $80. (All ticket prices include restoration fees.)

A subscription package for both shows of the season is only $100 which includes unlimited exchange privileges, invitations to Keen Company readings, and admission to Keen Teens Festival of New Work!  Save over 35% off full ticket price ($160.00). Subscribers also get free invitations to Keen’s Play Club discussion series. discounts on the purchase of Keen’s new cast recordings of Keen’s productions of Marry Me a Little and John & Jen, as well as advance notice and discounted tickets to The Playwrights Lab Series, and Keen Company’s Annual Gala.

Keen patrons 30 or under see both shows for just $25 each with a KEENConnect Subscription at only $50. That's all the perks of a regular subscription for the price of a rush ticket! Save over 65% off the full ticket price! (Please note, government issued ID must be presented at box office).

Individual tickets and subscriptions are on sale NOW! To purchase single tickets, visit the Theatre Row Box Office (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues), online at Telecharge.com, or call 212-239-6200. For subscriptions, please visit www.keencompany.org/subscribe.

For more information, visit www.keencompany.org

Mint Theater's DAYS TO COME by Lillian Hellman begins performances Thursday August 2nd

As seen in Sunday's The New York Times Arts & Leisure! 
"It's the sort of play the Mint Theater Company lives to revive Off-Broadway"

Mint Theater Company
To Present A Rare Revival of
DAYS TO COME
By Lillian Hellman

 
J.R. Sullivan Directs a Cast that Features Mary Bacon, Janie Brookshire, Larry Bull, Chris Henry Coffey, Dan Daily, Ted Deasy, Roderick Hill, Betsy Hogg, Kim Martin-Cotten, Geoffrey Allen Murphy, and Evan Zes
  
Performances Begin Thursday
at the Beckett Theater at Theatre Row

Limited Engagement through September 30th Only

Tickets On Sale Now!

Mint Theater (Jonathan Bank, Producing Artistic Director) will present a rare revival of Days to Come by Lillian Hellman, “one of the most important playwrights of the American theater” (New York Times). Performances will begin this Thursday, August 2nd, and continue through September 30th at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street). Opening Night is set for August 26th.

Mint Theater continues its commitment to present undiscovered gems from women playwrights. Nearly a third of the plays produced by Mint have been by women, rom Pulitzer-Prize winning plays by Zona Gal and Susan Glaspell, to ork by Cicely Hamilton, itha Sowerb, Hazel Ellis, Maurine Dallas Watkins, Rose Franken and Dawn Powell. In 2006, New York audiences were re-introduced to Rachel Crothers — once the toast of Broadway — with the highly praised production of Susan and God, followed by n qually acclaimed production of Crothers’s A Little Journey in 2011. Teresa Deevy had all but slipped from memory, even in her native Ireland — until the Mint came to her rescue with a our-productio, two-publicatio effort to resurrect her work and reputation, starting with Wife to James Whelan in 2010, continuing with Temporal Powers in 2011, atie Roche in 201 and The Suitcase Under the Bedin 201. ow, add Lillian Hellman to that roster!

Hellman’s second play, Days to Come, is a family drama set against the backdrop of  labor strife in a small Ohio town which threatens to tear apart both town and family. “It’s the story of innocent people on both sides who are drawn into conflict and events far beyond their comprehension,” Hellman said in an interview before Days to Come opened in 1936. “It’s the saga of a man who started something he cannot stop…”

Audiences had no chance to appreciate Days to Come when it premiered on Broadway in 1936; it closed after only a week. Hellman blamed herself for the play’s failure. “I wanted to say too much,” she wrote in a preface to the published play in 1942—while admitting that her director was confused and her cast inadequate. “On the opening night the actors moved as figures in the dream of a frightened child. It was my fault, I suppose, that it happened.” Nevertheless, “I stand firmly on the side of Days to Come.” In 1942, Hellman could afford to take responsibility for the play’s failure; she had enjoyed much success in the days after Days to Come (with both The Little Foxes and Watch on the Rhine). But Hellman’s play is better than she would admit.

Days to Come was revived only once in New York, in 1978, by the WPA Theatre. In reviewing that production for The Nation, Harold Clurman wrote that that “our knowledge of what Hellman would subsequently write reveals that Days to Come is not mainly concerned with the industrial warfare which is the ‘stuff’ of her story for the first two acts.
Hellman’s real preoccupation is “the lack of genuine values of mind or spirit” of her principle characters, the factory-owning Rodmans.

The Village Voice called the play “very much worth seeing:” “Days to Comeappears in retrospect to be a warm-up for her first masterpiece, The Little Foxes… It was also the first place in which her great continuing theme was fully stated: that there is no line between private morality and public policy, that political choices are moral choices. All people, Hellman tells us, have their failings; they are to be understood. But when those failings spill out onto other people, they become something which is no longer private and which cannot be overlooked.”

More than a neglected curiosity by one of America’s greatest playwrights, Days to Come is subtle, complex and vital drama: “Very much worth seeing,” indeed.

J.R. Sullivan directs a cast that features Mary Bacon (Mint Theater: Women Without Men, Madras House; Broadway: Dear Evan Hansen, Rock 'n' Roll, Arcadia; Off-Broadway: The Tribute Artist, Giant, Harrison, TX: Three Plays by Horton Foote); Janie Brookshire (Mint Theater: Wife to James Whelanand the title role in Mary Broome; other Off-Bway: The Mound Builders, Man and Superman, The Misanthrope), Larry Bull (Bway: The Coast of Utopia; Off-Bway: The Traveling Lady, Rocket to the Moon), Chris Henry Coffey(Bway: Bronx Bombers; Off-Bway: Water By The Spoonful, Fountainhead, Frank's Home), Dan Daily (Bway: The Tenth Man; Off-Bway: A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Subject Was Roses, Widowers' Houses, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Scarlet Letter), Ted Deasy (Bway: The 39 Steps; eight seasons at Oregon Shakespeare), Roderick Hill (Mint Theater: Return of the Prodigal, Mary Broome; Bway: Butley, Lestat; other Off-Bway: Stalking the Bogeyman, Unnatural Acts, The Irish Curse, Cymbeline), Betsy Hogg (Bway:Peter and the Starcatcher, Fiddler on the Roof, The Crucible; Off-Bway: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), Kim Martin-Cotten (Broadway: Time and the Conways, The Little Foxes, The Merchant of Venice; Drama Desk Award nomination: A Moon for the Misbegotten), Geoffrey Allen Murphy (Bway:The Nance, War Horse), and Evan Zes (Off-Bway: Incident at Vichy, The Freedom of the City, White Woman Street, Around the World in 80 Days, American Dreams: Lost and Found; Rent Control - writer and performer).  

Days to Come will have scenic design by Harry Feiner; costume design by Andrea Varga; lighting design by Christian DeAngelis; sound design by Jane Shaw; and prop design by Joshua Yocom.  Casting is by Stephanie Klapper, CSA. Rod Kinter will serve as Fight Director.

She was “very full of the most miraculous kind of contradictions,” observed Jane Fonda on playing Lillian Hellman (1905-1984). Hellman persistently spoke her mind as one of America’s most celebrated playwrights and controversial icons. Hailed as a “dramatist of extraordinary strength and skill” (John Chapman, The New York Daily News), Hellman pursued questions of truth and deception, integrity and complicity throughout her life and plays. Drawing from melodrama’s conflicts between good and evil, Hellman created characters of textured moral ambiguity, including the indelible Regina Giddens of The Little Foxes.  

Raised in a Southern Jewish family, Hellman was born in New Orleans on June 20, 1905, the daughter of banking heiress Julia Newhouse and Max Hellman. Due to her father’s work as a traveling shoe salesman, the family split households between New Orleans and New York City. Following three years at NYU, Hellman acquired a series of literary jobs. She served as a manuscript reader at Boni and Liveright, and — following first husband Arthur Kober to the West Coast—  read screenplays for MGM. In Hollywood, she embarked on a 30-year-long romance with The Thin Man writer Dashiell Hammett. After divorcing Kober, Hellman returned with Hammett to New York. Here, she found work as a script reader for Broadway producer-director Herman Shumlin, with whom she shared a draft of her own play, The Children’s Hour. The sensational 1934 premiere of The Children’s Hour catapulted the 29-year-old Hellman to the ranks of Broadway’s most successful dramatists. Praised for its dexterous craftsmanship, the tragedy controversially portrayed rumors of lesbianism between two teachers at an all-girls’ boarding school. Hellman re-teamed with Shumlin on her ambitious strike drama Days to Come (1936), which, confounding expectations, closed after a “staccato run of seven performances” (The New York Times). Hellman rebounded with The Little Foxes (1939), followed by Watch on the Rhine (1941), Another Part of the Forest (1946), The Autumn Garden (1951), Toys in the Attic (1960), and the book of the succès d’estime 1956 musical Candide. Political battles accompanied her theatrical fame. Committed to Popular Front radicalism since the 1930s, Hellman famously defended her principles in 1952 before the House Un-American Activities Committee: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Hellman’s firebrand legend continued to grow, along with her profile as a cultural lightning rod. She published a bestselling series of truth-seeking, but fact-blurring, memoirs, including An Unfinished Woman(1969) and Pentimento (1973). These books inspired the 1977 film Julia,starring Fonda as Hellman—and fueled accusations of being a “dishonest writer” from Mary McCarthy, who Hellman sued in 1980 in a much-publicized defamation lawsuit.

She died in Martha’s Vineyard on June 30 1984, memorialized for her unsentimental moral vision and incisive characterizations, often centered around “difficult women.” In the twenty-first century, Hellman’s plays have inspired many revivals and celebrations, highlighting the playwright’s complexities and “miraculous contradictions.” She is also the namesake of the Lilly Awards, honoring women in theatre.

Performances for Days to Come will be Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 7:30pm with matinees Saturday & Sunday at 2pm. No performance: Saturday September 8th at 2:00; Tuesday September 18th  at 7:30. Special added Matinees at 2pm on Wednesday September 5th and Thursday September 20th.  All performances will take place at Theater Row (410 West 42nd Streetbetween 9th and Dyer Avenues).

Tickets for Days to Come will be $65.00 (including $2.25 theater restoration fee) and can be purchased online at Telecharge.com, by phone at 212-239-6200 or in person at the Theatre Row Box Office.  

"Thank heaven for the unwavering commitment of Jonathan Bank, the theatrical archaeologist whose Mint Theater Company unearths long-forgotten plays and imbues them with new life,” declared The New York Times in response to a recent Mint production.  Mint was awarded an OBIE for “combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition” and a special Drama Desk Award for “unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit.” Ben Brantley in The New York Times Arts & Leisurehailed the Mint as the “resurrectionist extraordinaire of forgotten plays."

Of the Mint's most recent production, the acclaimed US Premiere of Miles Malleson’s Conflict, Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal declared “It is an immaculately well-made, comprehensively satisfying piece of theater, old-fashioned in style without feeling at all dated, and the Mint’s production, directed by Jenn Thompson and featuring an ensemble cast of supreme merit, is beyond praise. I’m not surprised—I’ve reviewed 13 Mint productions since 2005, each one a gem—but it’s still worth saying yet again that no New York-based theater company has a better batting average.”

For more information, including photos and videos of Mint productions, visitminttheater.org.



Photo credit: Irving Penn

Ensemble for the Romantic CenturyAnnounces the 2018-‘19 SeasonThree Play Season - Performances Begin September 15th

Ensemble for the Romantic Century

Announces the 2018-‘19 Season

Three Play Season to Include the Off-Broadway Premieres of

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson, MAESTRO, and

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: Tales Real & Imagined

 

Performances Begin September 15th

 

Tickets Now On Sale!

 

Ensemble for the Romantic Century (Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director) is proud to announce that the 2018-‘19 season, ERC’s 18th, will begin September 15th with BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson. Opening Night is set for September 27th.  This limited Off-Broadway engagement runs through October 21st only. Performances will be in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between Dyer and 10th Avenues).

Next up will be Maestro, with performances from January 3rd to February 9th, with opening night set for January 14th at The Duke on 42nd Street (229 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues).

The third and final show of the season will be Hans Christian Andersen – Tales Real & Imagined. Performances will begin April 13th for a limited run through June 1st, with opening night scheduled for April 28th, also at The Duke on 42nd Street.

Donald T. Sanders will direct all three productions.  Casts and design team will be announced shortly.

“This season, ERC creates three wildly different portraits of three wildly different artistic personalities - Emily Dickinson, Arturo Toscanini, and Hans Christian Andersen,” said Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director.  “ERC's genre-breaking, imaginative musical-dramatic performances aim to bring these artists' unique voices to life.”

The critically acclaimed Ensemble for the Romantic Century, now in its 18th Season, conjures the past with original multimedia productions that fuse chamber music, drama, and history. The subject matters span across centuries, from Tolstoy to Toscanini, from Verne to Van Gogh, all brought to life through the fusion of drama and sound. We believe that one can understand Freud more deeply by listening to the erotic cabaret music of fin de siècle Vienna, that one can appreciate Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” more profoundly by listening to him speak of his tortured love life and his debilitating deafness. By illuminating the interplay between literature, biography and music we have transformed the concert experience.

ERC was founded by pianist Eve Wolf in 2001 with the intention of creating an engaging and innovative approach to chamber music concerts. ERC’s theatrical concerts interweave letters, memoirs, diaries, poems, and other literature with chamber and vocal music; the music’s historical context is reinforced through its connections with history, politics, philosophy, psychology, and the other arts to create a compelling new performance experience. These unique productions merge dramatic and fully staged scripts with music, recapturing the past with a sense of immediacy that transports, illuminates, and captivates. The scripts, drawn from historical material that includes letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, poetry, and literature create an intricate counterpoint to the musical program. The subject matters span across centuries, from Tolstoy to Toscanini, from Verne to Van Gogh, all brought to life through the fusion of drama and music. By illuminating the interplay between literature, biography and music ERC has transformed the concert experience. The Romantic Century was about imagination and experimentation. Elevating the human condition through art: that is the spirit we hope to summon.

ERC has created over 40 original theatrical concerts at such institutions as BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music); Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA; The Jewish Museum of New York; the Archivio Fano of Venice, Italy; the Festival de Musique de Chambre Montréal; the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts/MIFA; the French Institute-Alliance Française/FIAF, New York; the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University; the Italian Cultural Institute of New York; and the City University of New York (CUNY).  ERC’s programs are distinguished by their artistic excellence, breadth of repertoire, and variety of subject matter. In its relatively short history, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century has enriched the music scene with highly innovative productions that are also historically informed, aesthetically exquisite, and emotionally transporting.

The three-play season, written by ERC Executive Artistic Director Eve Wolf, includes:

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson – Emily Dickinson produced some of the most haunting and mysterious works of the 19th Century but she was one of the most elusive artistic personalities. In Dickinson’s self-imposed solitude, she constructs a world of images, sensations, and emotions ruled by the breadth of her imaginations. Through a pairing of her words with the music of renowned composer Amy Beach, audiences embark on a journey through Dickinson’s soul and inner world.

MAESTRO brings to life the story of conductor Arturo Toscanini who bravely opposed Fascism in Italy and America. Through his trips to Palestine to conduct an orchestra made up of Jewish refugees, Toscanini clashes with Mussolini and Hitler showing the world that artists can raise their voices against totalitarianism. A moving theatrical experience drawing from his passionate personal letters along with music of his contemporaries, audiences enter into the mind of a Maestro.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: Tales Real & Imagined – Hans Christian Andersen is known as one of the most prolific authors of fairy tales, having written over 3300, some of which are so infused to our culture it's hard to imagine a world without them. This piece explores beyond just the magic taking a deeper look at the inner life of Andersen and how some of his most memorable tales, transcend age and nationality.

Eve Wolf is Founder and Executive Artistic Director of ERC as well as playwright. Recent credits include Van Gogh’s Ear (Pershing Square Signature Center, 2017; New York Times Critic’s Pick); Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (BAM, 2016; New York Times Critic’s Pick); and Jules Verne: From the Earth to The Moon (BAM, 2015; also a New York Times Critic’s Pick). Ms. Wolf founded Ensemble for the Romantic Century in 2001 with the mission of creating an innovative and dramatic concert format in which the emotions revealed in memoirs, letters, diaries, and literature are dramatically interwoven with music, thus bringing to life the sensations and passions of a bygone era. For the past sixteen seasons, Ms. Wolf has written scripts for more than twenty-five of ERC’s theatrical concerts and has performed in most of the ensemble’s forty-plus original productions. Some highlights include Ms. Wolf’s scripts for Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, which was performed at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA (2013) and at BAM (2014); Van Gogh’s Ear at the Festival de Musique de Chambre de Montréal; Fanny Mendelssohn: Out of her Brother’s Shadow commissioned by the Jewish Museum of New York; and The Dreyfus Affair and Peggy Guggenheim Stripped Bare by her Bachelors. In 2009, she performed before a sold-out audience at the Sale Apollinee of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in the Italian production of her script, Toscanini: Nel mio cuore troppo di assoluto.

Donald T. Sanders has been Director of Theatrical Production for ERC since 2005. In 2011, he directed Seduction, Smoke and Music at the Tuscan Sun Festival starring Jeremy Irons and Sinéad Cusack. Other ERC productions include Toscanini: Nel mio cuore troppo di assoluto at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice, Sale Apolline, and Van Gogh’s Ear at New York’s Florence Gould Hall and the Festival de Musique de Chambre Montréal. He has directed productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater as well as the off-Broadway plays of Arnold Weinstein, Eric Bentley, Kenneth Koch and William Russo. Sanders is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. He is the Executive Artistic Director of The Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA), presenting such artists as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Vanessa Redgrave, England’s Out of Joint and Complicite companies, and France’s Comédie Française.  In 2002, Sanders was made a Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France.

The Pershing Square Signature Center, the permanent home of Signature Theatre, is a three-theatre facility on West 42nd Street designed by Frank Gehry Architects to host Signature's three distinct playwrights' residencies and foster a cultural community. The Center is a major contribution to New York City's cultural landscape and provides a venue for cultural organizations that supports and encourages collaboration among the artists throughout the space. In addition to its three intimate theatres, the Center features a studio theatre, rehearsal studio, a bookstore, and the Signature Café + Bar, open to the public from noon-midnight Tuesdays - Sundays. For more information on renting the Center please visit www.signaturetheatre.org/rentals.

Founded in 1990, The New 42nd Street is an independent nonprofit organization charged with the continuous cultural revival of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, building on the foundation of seven historic theaters to make extraordinary performing arts and cultural engagement part of everyone’s life. The New 42nd Street fulfills this purpose by ensuring the ongoing vibrancy of 42nd Street’s historic theaters; supporting performing artists in the creation of their work at the New 42nd Street Studios and The Duke on 42nd Street; creating arts access and education at The New Victory Theater, New York’s premier theater for kids and families; and through the New 42nd Street Youth Corps, its model youth development initiative, which pairs life skills workshops and mentorship with paid employment in the arts for NYC youth. Inspired by the city it serves, The New 42nd Street is committed to the transformational power of the arts. The Duke on 42nd Street is a centrally-located black box theater rental that offers  smaller scale productions the unique opportunity to perform on famed 42nd Street. Housed within the New 42nd Street Studios, The Duke on 42nd Street is a fully-staffed facility featuring customizable, state-of-the-art seating in various configurations, and full light, sound and support systems. The venue has hosted such companies as Playwright’s Realm, Red Bull Theater, Primary Stages, Transport Group, Theatre for a New Audience, Lincoln Center Theater LCT3, The Royal Court Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Armitage Gone! Dance, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Naked Angels, Classical Theater of Harlem and the National Theater of Great Britain.

Season subscriptions, from $149 offering tickets for all three shows, are now available for purchase at romanticcentury.org.

Individual tickets, which are now on sale as well, are $39 to $149.

Tickets for BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson can be purchased online at TicketCentral.com; by phone at 212-279-4200; or in person at 416 West 42nd Street (12 noon to 8pm daily).

Tickets for MAESTRO and HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: Tales Real & Imagined can be purchased online at Dukeon42.org; by phone at 646-223-3010; or in person at The Duke on 42nd Street at 229 West 42nd Street (Tuesdays-Fridays 4-7 and Saturdays 12-6).

For more information, visit romanticcentury.org.