Playwrights Horizons to Offer $5 Lottery for First Preview of INKED BABY Starring LaChanze

Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25 at 10:00 AM, Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will be accepting entries for its popular LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to its next production, the World Premiere of INKED BABY, a new play by 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn nominee Christina Anderson in her Off-Broadway playwriting debut. A total of 40 tickets will be available via the online lottery.

A ticketing initiative created last season as part of the theater company's Arts Access program, LIVEforFIVE makes $5 tickets available for the first preview performance of each Playwrights Horizons production through a lottery via the company's website (www.playwrightshorizons.org). The LIVEforFIVE lottery for INKED BABY will be for tickets to the first preview on Thursday, March 5 at 7:30 PM at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street).

Directed by Kate Whoriskey (Fabulation at Playwrights Horizons, the current hit Ruined), INKED BABY will have its official opening on Monday, March 23 at 7:00 PM and continue through Sunday, April 5.

The cast is lead by Tony and Obie award winner LaChanze (both Once on This Island and The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin at Playwrights Horizons, Dessa Rose), who is making her return to the stage for the first time since winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for The Color Purple. The cast also features Che Ayende (Oroonoko), Michael Genet (Off-Broadway's A Soldier's Play and The Colored Museum, TBS' "Tyler Perry's House of Payne"), Damon Gupton (Off-Broadway's The Story, True History and Real Adventures and Treason), 2-time Audelco Award nominee Angela Lewis (Hoodoo Love, Caligula), Nana Mensah (365 Days/365 Plays) and Obie Award winner Nikkole Salter (In the Continuum).

Details for the LIVEforFIVE lottery are as follows: beginning Wednesday, February 25 at 10 AM, theatergoers can enter the lottery by filling out an entry form at www.playwrightshorizons.org. Entries will be accepted until Monday, March 2 at 12 Noon. Winners of the lottery will be notified via email no later than 3PM on Monday, March 2 with instructions on how to book their $5 tickets. Unclaimed tickets will be offered via email starting at 12 Noon on Tuesday, March 3 on a first-come, first-served basis. One or two tickets may be purchased for $5 each. A total of 40 tickets will be available for Sharp shows via the lottery.

In INKED BABY, stuck for money and unable to conceive, Gloria (LaChanze) enlists the aid of her sister (Angela Lewis) to make the child that she and her husband (Damon Gupton) can't. As they uneasily await the baby's arrival, a mysterious contamination spreads outside. But consumed by their own struggles, is anyone paying attention? In this imaginative, other-worldly new drama, one family fights to find its place in a neglected neighborhood.

The Arts Access program at Playwrights Horizons allows the institution to reach out to those who may not be able to afford the cost of a full-price theater ticket.

Reflecting Playwrights Horizons' ongoing commitment to making its productions more affordable to younger audiences, the theater company will offer HOTtix, $20 rush tickets, subject to availability, day of performance only, starting one hour before showtime to patrons aged 30 and under. Proof of age required. One ticket per person, per purchase. STUDENT RUSH, $15 rush tickets, subject to availability, day of performance only, starting one hour before curtain to full-time graduate and undergraduate students. One ticket per person, per purchase. Valid full-time student ID required.

LIVEforFIVE, HOTtix and STUDENT RUSH are some of Playwrights Horizons' popular Arts Access initiatives, which allow the theater company to reach out to those who may not be able to afford the cost of a full-price theater ticket. Playwrights Horizons is grateful to The Bank of America Charitable Foundation, lead sponsor of Arts Access at Playwrights Horizons. This program is also supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, McGraw-Hill Companies and the Elroy and Terry Krumholz Foundation.

Playwrights Horizons' 2008/2009 Season is generously supported by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Playwrights Horizons' production of INKED BABY has received generous support from The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Time Warner Inc., The Carter Fund and the Tiger Baron Foundation. Playwrights Horizons is also supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate. In addition, Playwrights Horizons receives major support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charina Endowment Fund and The Shubert Foundation.

Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. In its 38 years, Playwrights Horizons has presented the work of more than 375 writers and has received numerous awards and honors, most recently being honored with a special 2008 Drama Desk Award for "ongoing support to generations of theater artists and undiminished commitment to producing new work." Notable productions include four Pulitzer Prize winners: Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (2004 Tony Award, Best Play), Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles (1989 Tony Award, Best Play), Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George, as well as Craig Lucas's PRAYER FOR MY Enemy and Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play), Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's Grey Gardens (3 2007 Tony Awards), Adam Rapp's Kindness, John Dempsey, Michael Friedman and Rinne Groff's Saved, Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, Bruce Norris's The Pain and the Itch, Lynn Nottage's Fabulation (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting), Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero, Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey's James Joyce's The Dead, William Finn's March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Richard Nelson's Goodnight Children Everywhere and Franny's Way, Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room, A.R. Gurney's Later Life, Adam Guettel and Tina Landau's Floyd Collins and Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet.

For subscription and ticket information to all Playwrights Horizons productions,

call TICKET CENTRAL at (212) 279-4200, Noon to 8 pm daily,

or purchase online at the Playwrights Horizons website at

www.playwrightshorizons.org