LCT3 Presents 4000 MILES With Ebert, Wilson, Previews 6/6/2011

LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater's programming initiative devoted to producing the work of new artists and developing new audiences, will present the 4000 Miles a new play by Amy Herzog, directed by Daniel Aukin, as the third production of its 2010-2011 season. 4000 Miles will begin performances Monday, June 6, open Monday, June 20 and run through Saturday, July 6 at The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42nd Street® project (229 West 42 Street).

After losing his best friend while they were on a cross-country bike trip, 21 year-old Leo (to be played by Gabriel Ebert) seeks solace from his feisty 91 year-old grandmother (Mary Louise Wilson) in her West Village apartment. 4000 Miles examines how these two outsiders find their way in today's world.

Additional casting and the design team for 4000 Miles will be announced at a later date.

Playwright Amy Herzog also wrote After The Revolution, which just completed a run at Playwrights Horizons. Her plays have been produced or developed at the Yale School of Drama, Ensemble Studio Theater, Arena Stage, New York Stage and Film, Provincetown Playhouse and ACT in San Francisco.

Director Daniel Aukin was artistic director of Soho Repertory Theatre where his productions included Everything Will Be Different, Suitcase (which he also directed at the La Jolla Playhouse), Molly's Dream, and (sic) (for which he won an Obie Award). He has also directed at Playwrights Horizons, the New York Theatre Workshop, The Play Company, Guthrie Theater, and Minneapolis' The Children's Theatre Company.

Mary Louise Wilson won the Tony Award and received Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for her performance in Grey Gardens. Her other credits include Full Gallop (as Diana Vreeland for which she won a Drama Desk Award), the revival of Cabaret (Tony Award nomination), Show Boat, Fools, Prelude to a Kiss, Gypsy and Flora The Red Menace. Gabriel Ebert, a recent Juilliard graduate, is currently performing in Brief Encounter.

Citing the need to develop strong relationships with new artists and to build new audiences, Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of Andre Bishop, Artistic Director, and Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) created LCT3 to offer these artists fully staged productions. LCT is currently building a new theater, rehearsal space and office complex on the roof of the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The 131-seat theater, to be named the Claire Tow Theater, is scheduled to open in early 2012 and will be the home of LCT3. Paige Evans is Artistic Director/LCT3.

Prior to 4000 Miles, LCT3 will produce the world premiere of When I Come To Die, by Nathan Louis Jackson, directed by Tommy Kail, beginning performances Monday, January 31, opening Thursday, February 10 and running through Saturday, February 27 at the Duke on 42nd Street.

Lincoln Center Theater is currently presenting the new musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with book by Jeffrey Lane, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and direction by Bartlett Sher at the Belasco Theatre through January 23, John Guare's A Free Man of Color, directed by George C. Wolfe, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater through January 9 and Jon Robin Baitz' Other Desert Cities, directed by Joe Mantello, opening Thursday, January 13 in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. This spring, LCT will present, with the National Theatre of Great Britain in association with Bob Boyett, the National Theatre's critically acclaimed production of War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, adapted by Nick Stafford with Handspring Puppet Company, directed by MariAnne Elliott and Tom Morris, beginning performances Tuesday, March 15 in the Vivian Beaumont Theater and the new musical A Minister's Wife, adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Candida, by Austin Pendleton, with music by Joshua Schmidt, lyrics by Jan Tranen and conceived and directed by Michael Halberstam, beginning previews Thursday, April 7 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

About the organization: The New 42nd Street

Founded in 1990, The New 42nd Street is an independent, nonprofit organization charged with long-term responsibility for seven historic theaters on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. In addition to running The New Victory Theater, The New 42nd Street built and operates the New 42nd Street® Studios a ten-story building of rehearsal studios, offices and a 200-seat theater named The Duke on 42nd Street for national and international performing arts companies. Since its opening on June 21, 2000, the New 42nd Street Studios has been fully occupied by both nonprofit and commercial theater, dance and opera companies. With these institutions and the other properties under its guardianship, The New 42nd Street plays a pivotal role in fostering the continued revival of this famous street at the Crossroads of the World.

About the theater: The Duke on 42nd Street

The Duke on 42nd Street is an intimate 200-seat black box theater built and operated by The New 42nd Street. Since opening in 2000, the theater has been available on a rental basis to international and domestic nonprofit organizations to present their work. Companies that have presented at The Duke on 42nd Street theater include: Theatre for a New Audience; Playwrights Horizons; Lincoln Center Great Performers; The NYC Tap Festival; and 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Project. In October 2008, Lincoln Center Theater launched "LCT3" at The Duke on 42nd Street. New 42nd Street presentations at The Duke on 42nd Street have included: Karole Armitage's Armitage Gone! Dance; Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Rose Rage; Naked Angels and Dan Klores' Armed and Naked in America; and Classical Theater of Harlem's production of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity. Notable New Victory presentations at The Duke on 42nd Street include Joan McLeod's The Shape of a Girl, Steppenwolf Theater Company's The Bluest Eye and the smash hit Once and For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen presented by The New Victory Theater in cooperation with The Under the Radar Festival. In January , The New Victory will present Nearly Lear, co-created by Susanna Hamnett and Edith Tankus with initial development in association with Kneehigh Theatre.

Photo credit: Joseph F. Panarello