Tony Winner Karen Ziemba to Lead NATIVE GARDENS at Cincinnati Playhouse

Veteran Broadway actor Karen Ziemba, who received Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for her portrayal of The Wife in Contact, has been cast in the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's upcoming production of NATIVE GARDENS.

Ziemba's additional credits include the Kander and Ebb musical Curtains, for which she received an Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony, Drama Desk and L.A. Ovation award nominations; Never Gonna Dance (Outer Critics Circle Award, Tony nomination); Steel Pier (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award nominations); And the World Goes 'Round (Drama Desk Award); and I Do! I Do! (Drama Desk nomination).

NATIVE GARDENS is a world premiere by Karen Zacarías, author of The Book Club Play, which was a smash hit at the Playhouse in 2013 and at theatres across the country. In the show, gardens and cultures clash, turning friendly neighbors into feuding enemies. NATIVE GARDENS uses comedy to dig into deeper issues of taste, class, privilege and entitlement with hilarious results.

Zacarías' world premiere - one of five of her plays debuting this season throughout the country - was commissioned through the Playhouse's Jerome A. Fey Endowment as part of its ongoing commitment to the development and production of new plays. NATIVE GARDENS, which will be directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Blake Robison, runs Jan. 23 through Feb. 21 in the Robert S. Marx Theatre.

In NATIVE GARDENS, Ziemba will portray community denizen Virginia Capanini Butley. She will be joined by John Lescault as her husband and avid gardener Frank Butley and by Gabriel Ruiz and Sabina Zuniga Varela as Pablo and Tania Del Valle, a new-to-the-neighborhood couple with fresh ideas for landscaping their yard next door.

Tickets to NATIVE GARDENS are on sale now. For more information, call the Playhouse Box Office at 513-421-3888 (toll-free in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana at 800-582-3208) or visit www.cincyplay.com. Call 513-345-2248 for Telecommunications Device for the Deaf accessibility.