Williamstown Theatre Festival's BLOOD PLAY Opens Tonight

Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Director Jenny Gersten has announced the opening of the seventh and final production of the 2013 season: Blood Play, the smash hit by the Obie Award-winning company The Debate Society, opens tonight on the Nikos Stage and plays through August 18, following tonight's preview performance.

Named by New York Magazine as one of the Top 10 Plays of 2012, the critically lauded production of Blood Play by The Debate Society comes to Williamstown. The darkly comic thriller was created by the talented trio of Debate Society founders and Sundance Institute Fellows - Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen(writers/performers) and Oliver Butler (director/developer). Bos and Thureen star in Blood Play as Bev and Jeep, respectively. Butler returns to WTF after serving as a prestigious Bill Foeller Directing Fellow last year. Blood Play first premiered at The Bushwick Starr Theater and was subsequently produced at The Public Theater's 2013 Under the Radar Festival. Of the show, The New Yorker exclaimed, "Unlike anything I've ever seen. I was blown away by the energy."

Blood Play begins on a tranquil suburban evening in the early 1950's: the kids are away on a Junior Cherokee camping trip and a string of coincidences leads to a spontaneous grown-up party in the basement of a new ranch house. Exotic cocktails are imbibed, raucous games are played, and new friends are made, but much is happening that no one is talking about. And something is stirring underground.

"While WTF is steeped in tradition, our legacy really began by bringing young actors and directors up to the Festival to try daring work - Blood Play is part of this continuum," said WTF Artistic Director Jenny Gersten. "As a festival, we believe that presenting new theatrical voices is very much a part of our mission. The Debate Society is a group of young artists (some of whom came up through WTF training programs) who are creating work that has one foot set in the mainstream theatrical tradition and the other foot squarely in the avant-garde. The result is a wonderful, quirky, unexpected evening of theatre."

The Debate Society is an Obie Award-winning, Brooklyn based company that creates new plays through the collaboration of Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen (writer/performers), and Oliver Butler (director/developer). Winner of a "Village Voice Best of NYC Award," the company specializes in creating unexpected stories set in supremely intricate, vividly theatrical worlds. The Debate Society shapes new plays through a rigorous 12-18 month development process. Time Out New Yorkraves, "The Debate Society has emerged as the most beguiling and visually inventive experimental troupe in years."

Blood Play features the original cast from the Bushwick Starr and Public Theater Productions: Hannah Bos (The Eaten Heart, Lysistrata) as Bev, Michael Cyril Creighton ("30 Rock") as Morty, Hanlon Smith-Dorsey (A Cadaver Christmas) as Sam, Emma Galvin (Our Town) as Ira, Birgit Huppuch(Telephone, 2009 Obie Award for Best Performance) as Gail, and Paul Thureen (A Thought About Raya, The Snow Hen) as Jeep.

The production also features the creative team from the original production: Laura Jellinek (Scenic Design), Joshua Kohler (Production Manager), Sydney Maresca (Costume Design), Mike Riggs (Lighting Design), Ben Truppin-Brown and M.L. Dogg (Sound Design), Noah Mease (Props Master), andNicholas Moreno (Technical Director). Amy Ehrenberg is the Stage Manager.

As previously announced, the complete 2013 Williamstown Theatre Festival season runs from June 26 - August 18, 2013 and in addition to The Debate Society's smash hit production of Blood Play on the Nikos Stage, also includes the Broadway-bound The Bridges of Madison County, a new musical by Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman playing on the Main Stage through August 18. Additional highlights of the 59th season have included the sold-out run of the Red Sox musical Johnny Baseball by Richard Dresser (book), Robert Reale (music), and Willie Reale (lyrics); the critically acclaimed production ofGeorge Bernard Shaw's classic Pygmalion directed by Nicholas Martin, the madcap musical of the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, the revival of Tom Stoppard's Hapgood, and the World Premiere of Bess Wohl's American Hero. The season has seen the return of many Williamstown veterans including Kate Burton (in Hapgood), and Robert Sean Leonard (in Pygmalion), plus Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher, who makes his directing debut at the Festival.

Tickets to Blood Play are $50 ($45 for preview performances). Tickets for all Williamstown Theatre Festival productions can be purchased online at wtfestival.org, by phone at 413-597-3400, or in person at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance Box Office at 1000 Main St (Route 2), Williamstown, MA 02167.

Photo by: T Charles Erickson