Jack Gilpin Signs On To Cast Of COUPLES COUNSELING, Plays 59E59 Theaters 7/31 - 8/1

Celebrated theater and film actor Jack Gilpin is signing on to the Edinburgh-bound cast of Couples Counseling in the role of Dr. Bob Melmud.

"We are thrilled that Jack is joining the cast," says director Judith Stevens-Ly. "He is a consummate actor with great comic abilities to bring to this play, which is a wild ride." Gilpin has performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway in many productions and has had recurring roles on such TV shows as Law & Order and Kate and Allie. His most recent New York appearance was in the world premiere of Tina Howe's Chasing Manet this spring, and he has been featured in over thirty films.

Couples Counseling, written by award-winning playwright Carey Lovelace, is a quirky comedy with a highly original approach to language. It explores psychotherapy, Manhattan-style. Tony Award-winning actress Patricia Elliott has called it "unique, thrilling, wonderful...a dance of interruptions, gestures, helpless lost-and-found...And it is very, very funny."

The play will be seen at 59E59 Theaters in New York July 31 and August 1. It will play a two-week run this August at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe-the world's most celebrated theatre event. The play has been hailed as "magnificent...a combination of Freud, Wycherley, and Mozart."

Produced by New York-based Loose Change Productions, Couples Counseling charts a journey through the tribulations of a love triangle between a psychiatrist and a couple, played by James B. Kennedy and Anna Margaret Hollyman, whose relationship is wildly unraveling. Asking questions about the healing nature of betrayal, it has been compared to the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and David Mamet.

Originally developed in New York City at Ensemble Studio Theatre, it played to sold-out houses last fall at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre (New York City). At Edinburgh, it is being co-produced by California Institute of the Arts. It will be presented daily starting Saturday, Aug. 8. Venue 13 is located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in the center of Edinburgh. (No performance Monday, August 17.)

Jack Gilpin has performed on Broadway in The Elephant Man, Beyond Therapy, Getting and Spending, Lunch Hour, and Players. He has appeared off-Broadway in the original productions of plays by A. R. Gurney, Christopher Durang, Peter Parnell, John Ford Noonan, Wendy Wasserstein, and Romulus Linney. Feature films, include Something Wild, Reversal of Fortune, Funny Farm, She-Devil, Quick Change, Heartburn, Commandments, Quiz Show, Barcelona, Compromising Positions, The Juror, The Life Before Her Eyes, 21, and the soon-to-be released Adventureland. On television he has been featured as defense attorney Jeff Axtell on Law & Order and as Roger on Kate and Allie. Other TV credits include White Mile (HBO), Unnatural Pursuits (BBC), New York Undercover, Feds, New York News, Ed, The Cosby Show, and The Cosby Mysteries. He has performed leading roles in most of the major regional theatres in the United States, including the Guthrie, the Long Wharf, the Hartford Stage Company, and the Yale Rep.

Loose Change Productions, founded in 2009 and based in New York City, is dedicated to the promotion of challenging, trans-national performance and theatre that explores new creative, moral, ethical, and political territory.

59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street, NYC
July 31 at 7:15 p.m., Aug. 1 at 4:15 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.
Tickets: Ticket Central Box Office 212-279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com

Venue 13, Lochend Close at Canongate, Edinburgh, UK
Aug. 8-22 at 5:45 p.m. (no performance August 17)
Tickets: Venue 13 Box Office (07074) 201313 or www.edfringe.com

For more information, please contact: Michelle Karem, (001) 212-566-2929 or loosechangeproductionsinc@gmail.com

And visit us at: www.loosechangeproductions.org

Photo credit Walter McBride