Peter Parnell's DADA WOOF PAPA HOT to Kick Off Lincoln Center Theater's 2015-16 Season

Lincoln Center Theater has announced the first two productions of its 2015-2016 season: DADA WOOF PAPA HOT, a new play by Peter Parnell, to be directed by Scott Ellis, beginning performances Thursday, October 15 and opening Monday, November 9 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater; and the LCT3 world premiere production of KILL FLOOR, a new play by Abe Koogler, to be directed by Lila Neugebauer, which will begin performances Saturday, October 3, open on Monday, October 19, and run through Sunday, November 15 at the Claire Tow Theater (150 West 65 Street).

DADA WOOF PAPA HOT

Alan and Rob are an older married couple with a three-year-old daughter and a life they fought decades to be allowed to lead. But Alan has begun to feel an attraction to a younger gay dad; his closest straight friend's marriage is disintegrating before his eyes; and his daughter Nicola seems to prefer Rob, who's taken to parenting without any of Alan's insecurities.

In the course of one school year, three couples struggle with what it means to be married with children at this head-spinning cultural moment. By turns comic and serious, DADA WOOF PAPA HOT asks the question: are the challenges of gay dads the same as those of straight dads? Or is there something fundamentally different about being a gay father? And what about that nagging feeling that in assimilating to straight culture, something worth saving has been lost?

Peter Parnell returns to LCT where his play QED, starring Alan Alda, enjoyed an extended run at the Vivian Beaumont Theater after a production at the Mark Taper Forum. He most recently wrote the new book for the Alan Menken-Stephen Schwartz musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney Theatrical Group), and the new book for the Broadway revival of Lerner and Lane's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever starring Harry Connick, Jr. and Jessie Mueller. His plays include Trumpery (Atlantic Theater Company), a two-part stage adaptation of John Irving's The Cider House Rules (American Theatre Critics Association Award; Seattle Rep, Mark Taper Forum, Atlantic). His other plays, Sorrows of Stephen, The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket, Romance Language, Hyde in Hollywood, Flaubert's Latest, and An Imaginary Life were first produced by the Public Theater and at Playwrights Horizons. For television, Mr. Parnell was a co-producer for The West Wing (two Emmy Award citations), and a producer for The Guardian, Inconceivable, Six Degrees, and, most recently, The Lottery. His children's book And Tango Makes Three, co-authored with Justin Richardson, was an American Library Association Notable Book, a Henry Bergh Award winner, and has either headed or been on the ALA's Top Ten List of Most Banned Books from 2006-2013. Simon & Schuster will publish a tenth-anniversary edition of Tango later this year. Parnell has served on the Literary Award Committee of PEN and has taught dramatic writing at Dartmouth, the New School, Columbia, the Yale School of Drama, and currently at NYU. He proudly serves as Vice-President of The Dramatists Guild.

Scott Ellis directed this season's critically acclaimed Broadway productions of On the Twentieth Century, The Elephant Man, and You Can't Take It With You. He received Tony Award nominations for his productions of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Curtains, Twelve Angry Men, 1776, Steel Pier, and She Loves Me. His other Broadway productions include Harvey, The Little Dog Laughed (Lucille Lortel Award nomination for its original Off-Broadway production), The Man Who Had All the Luck, The Rainmaker, Company, Picnic, and A Month in the Country. Off-Broadway he directed Tom Durnin; Gruesome Playground Injuries; Streamers; Good Boys, and True; The Waverly Gallery; Flora, the Red Menace (Drama Desk nomination); and and the World Goes 'Round (Drama Desk Award). His television credits include "Weeds," "30 Rock" (Emmy Award nomination for Best Director), "Modern Family," and "The Good Wife."

KILL FLOOR

In KILL FLOOR, Andy returns to her hometown after three years in prison and takes a job at the local slaughterhouse, while trying to reconcile with her 15 year-old son, B, a passionate vegetarian.

Paige Evans is Artistic Director/LCT3.

KILL FLOOR marks playwright Abe Koogler's professional debut. He earned an MFA in playwriting from the UT-Austin Michener Center for Writers and is currently a fellow in Juilliard's Playwrights Program. His plays have been developed at Kitchen Dog Theater, the Playwrights' Center, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Black Swan Lab. He is a Theatre Masters Visionary Playwright. Abe won the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Award for Kill Floor and is a native of Washington State.

Lila Neugebauer directed Amy Herzog's After the Revolution and 4000 Miles at Baltimore Stage and last fall's critically acclaimed revival of A. R. Gurney's The Wayside Motor Inn at the Signature Theatre. A co-Artistic Director of The Mad Ones, she directed the company's The Essential Straight & Narrow and conceives and directs ensemble-devised works including Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War. Other recent work includes Dorothy Fortenberry's Partners (2014 Humana Festival), Lucas Hnath's Red Speedo (The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC), and Zoe Kazan's Trudy and Max in Love (South Coast Rep).

The LCT3 program is supported by generous grants from The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Ford Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, The Educational Foundation of America, the J & AR Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Endowment support is generously provided by Daryl Roth.

The casts and design teams for DADA WOOF PAPA HOT and KILL FLOOR will be announced at a later date.

This spring, Lincoln Center Theater is producing Rodgers & Hammerstein's THE KING AND I, directed by Bartlett Sher, currently in previews and opening Thursday, April 16 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, and THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX, a new play by Bathsheba Doran, directed by Sam Gold, through Sunday, April 26 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Upcoming productions later this spring are SHOWS FOR DAYS, a new play by Douglas Carter Beane, directed by Jerry Zaks, beginning Saturday, June 6 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, and the LCT3 production of the new musical PRELUDES by Dave Malloy, developed with and directed by Rachel Chavkin, beginning performances Saturday, May 23 at the Claire Tow Theater.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski