Bobby Cannavale, Laura Linney, Peter Dinklage & More Set for Labyrinth's Benefit Reading of THE CHERRY ORCHARD

Labyrinth Theater Company, the award-winning, nationally renowned theater company, will stage a reading of Company Member Jonathan Marc Sherman's adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, Texas Red on April 24, benefiting the Company's new play development programs. This one-night-only event will feature Labyrinth Company Members Bobby Cannavale, Chris Chalk, Ethan Hawke, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Portia, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Yul Vázquez and guest artists Paul Dano, Peter Dinklage, Maya Hawke, Zoe Kazan, and Laura Linney. Cast subject to continuing availability.

Ethan Hawke says, "A few years ago, I did a production of The Cherry Orchard as part of the Bridge Project, which Richard Linklater and Jonathan Marc Sherman came to see. That night, we got into a long conversation about how exciting it would be to do a film adaptation, set in modern day Texas. So often in Chekhov, the issues of race and class are lost on American audiences unable to fully grasp the nuances of Russian culture, and there is no play where Russia's history of serfdom is more potent than in The Cherry Orchard. Jonathan set about writing an adaptation that would make these themes come alive for a modern audience. Our dream is that one day this will be a film. We are inviting you to witness the beginning of our journey."

Labyrinth Theater Company's Spring Benefit will take place Sunday, April 24 at 5pm at Bank Street Theater, located at 155 Bank Street in Manhattan. Tickets are $500 and can be purchased by visiting labtheater.org or by calling 212.513.1080. Ticket includes a post-reading talk back and reception with the cast.

Jonathan Marc Sherman was born & raised in New Jersey, graduated from Bennington College, and lives in New York City. His plays include: Clive; Things We Want; Knickerbocker; Evolution; Wonderful Time; Sons & Fathers; Sophistry; Veins & Thumbtacks; Jesus on the Oil Tank; Serendipity & Serenity; and Women & Wallace. They have been performed at The Public Theater, The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival, as well as in England, Australia, Israel, Istanbul, and Japan. He co-founded Malaparte, and is a member of Labyrinth Theater Company. His hobby is writing about himself in the third person.

Labyrinth Theater Company (Artistic Director, Mimi O'Donnell, and Executive Director, Danny Feldman) is a home for diverse artists who have changed the face of American theater through groundbreaking productions of provocative new plays. Founded in 1992 by a group of actors who wanted to push their artistic limits and tell new, more inclusive stories that expanded the boundaries of mainstream theater, Labyrinth has grown into an award-winning, nationally renowned company of actors, directors, playwrights and designers from a wide array of cultural perspectives. Over the past 20 years, Labyrinth has developed hundreds of original works and premiered 58 new American plays here in New York including Jack Goes Boating, Jesus Hopped The A Train, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Our Lady of 121st Street, Sailor's Song, Thinner Than Water and the Company's multi-Tony nominated Broadway debut, The Motherf**ker With The Hat.