IN THE BLOOD Plays The Finborough Theatre August 15-30

Lambert Maher Productions and Boomerang Theatre Productions in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre present The European Premiere IN THE BLOOD by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Directed by Daniel Burgess.

The European premiere of In The Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks - the first African-American woman ever to win a Pulitzer Prize, and one of America's most successful contemporary playwrights - plays at the Finborough Theatre for a limited run of six Sunday and Monday performances, opening on 15 August 2010 (Press Night: Monday, 16 August 2010), as part of the 30th anniversary year of the Finborough Theatre.

An urban American "riff" on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, In the Blood is the story of Hester La Negrita, mother to five children, of five fathers, who makes a home beneath a bridge on the streets of New York. Hounded by her need to provide a better future for her family, she bargains her hopes on the only people left in her world, and comes up short. This raw, physical production of Parks' seminal work will take us to this world that exists on the flipside of the American Dream.

Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks is one of the most exciting playwrights in American drama today, and the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for the Broadway hit TopDog/UnderDog. She is also a MacArthur ‘Genius' Award recipient, was named as one of Time magazine's ‘100 Innovators for the Next New Wave' and is the first recipient of the Master Writer Chair residency at New York's Public Theater. Her numerous plays include TopDog/UnderDog (Tony Award nominee), Venus (OBIE Award), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire Earth, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (OBIE Award for Best New American Play), The America Play, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 8 & 9) and Snake. In 2007, her project 365 Plays/365 Days was produced in over 700 theatres worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theatre history. Her screenplays include Girl 6, written for Spike Lee; Their Eyes Were Watching God which starrEd Halle Barry and premiered on ABC's Oprah Winfrey Presents; and co-author of The Great Debaters, starring Denzel Washington. Her novels include Getting Mother's Body, published by Random House.

Director Daniel Burgess was a Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre where he has worked on A Day at the Racists, Molière, or The League of Hypocrites, Vibrant! - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights and Too True To Be Good. This is his professional debut.

Lambert Maher Productions was founded by Rachel Lambert and Bridget Maher in 2009. Their first project was a site-specific production of Breaking the Code at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, the first production to be staged in that space. The company's focus will be to produce plays sourced from their native regions of America and New Zealand.

The Press on In the Blood
"Suzan-Lori Parks's extraordinary new play, In the Blood, is about the way we live now, and it is truly harrowing. Ms. Parks's writing has grown leaner and hungrier and you will leave this play feeling pity and terror. We cannot turn away, and we do not want to. And because it is a work of art, you will leave thrilled, even comforted by its mastery." The New York Times
"An electrifying drama. The fascinating thing about Parks is the steady power of her language and imagery. She is a relentlessly inventive phrasemaker, and the speech here is a graceful amalgam of street talk and learned prose. The play is gritty, yet full of imaginative flourishes. The language keeps pricking your ears." The Washington Post

Finborough Theatre, The Finborough, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Box Office 0844 847 1652 Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Sundays and Mondays, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29 and 30 August 2010
Evenings at 7.30pm. Tickets £13, £9 concessions
Performance Length: Approximately 2 hours.