Atlantic Theater Company has announced the final Stage 2 production of its 2009-2010 season - the world premiere of Stephen Belber's play DUSK RINGS A BELL, directed by Sam Gold. Casting and design team will be announced.
DUSK RINGS A BELL will begin previews Wednesday, May 19; officially open Thursday, May 27; and play a limited engagement through Sunday, June 20 Off-Broadway at Atlantic Stage 2 (330 West 16 Street).
Molly and Ray unexpectedly meet 25 years after a one-afternoon adolescent fling. She has a successful media career; he owns a small landscaping business. Both begin to romanticize their chance reunion, but a renewed connection is disrupted when Ray reveals the sordid details of a crime that left him incarcerated for ten years. Their encounter reveals two vastly different paths taken and two lonely souls attempting to reclaim a moment of possibility, when they were young and perhaps at their very best.
Playwright and screenwriter Stephen Belber makes his Atlantic debut with the world premiere of Dusk Rings a Bell. He has been represented on Broadway with the world premiere of his play Match starring Frank Langella. His hit Off-Broadway play Tape has been produced in New York, Australia, Germany, Canada, Greece and Japan and was made into a feature film starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman.
Sam Gold also makes his Atlantic debut. He most recently directed Annie Baker's play Circle Mirror Transformation Off-Broadway and will direct her new play The Aliens this spring. He is a recipient of a Princess Grace Award, a Theater Hall of Fame Fellowship, and is a Wooster Group Associate Artist, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect.
The American premiere production of Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard's Ages of the Moon, directed by Jimmy Fay, has been extended through Sunday, March 21, 2010 at Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater (336 West 20 Street).
STEPHEN BELBER. As a playwright, Belber's work has been produced on Broadway and in over 25 countries. Plays include Match (Tony Award® nomination for Frank Langella); Tape (Naked Angels NY/LA/London); McReele (Roundabout); A Small, Melodramatic Story (Labyrinth); Geometry of Fire, (Rattlestick); Fault Lines (Cherry Lane); One Million Butterflies (Primary Stages), and Carol Mulroney (Huntington Theater Company). He was an Associate Writer on The Laramie Project (Drama Desk and Lortel nominations), and co-writer on the more recent Laramie Project Epilogue. Movies include Tape, directed by Richard Linklater, The Laramie Project (Associate Writer/Emmy Nomination for screenwriting), Drifting Elegant and Management, which he also directed, starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn. He is currently developing screen adaptations of both Match and McReele. Television includes "Rescue Me" and "Law & Order SVU" (staff writer). Member of Tectonic Theater Project and the Labyrinth Theater Company.
SAM GOLD (Director). Recent credits: Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons) and The Aliens (Rattlestick), Nick Jones and Raja Azar's Jollyship the Whizbang (Under the Radar Festival; Ars Nova), Betty Shamieh's The Black Eyed (New York Theater Workshop), Noah Haidle's Rag and Bone (Rattlestick), Alena Smith's The Sacrifices (Summer Play Festival), Sam Forman's The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall (Stage 13), Sam Mark's The Joke (Studio Dante), Colin McKenna's The Secret Agenda of Trees (Cherry Lane), and Rogelio Martinez's Fizz (The Ohio Theater). Sam has developed new plays at American Conservatory Theater, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, Manhattan Class Company, Manhattan Theater Club, The Marin Theater, New York Theater Workshop, The Ojai Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages, The Public Theater, The Sundance Theater Lab, The Vineyard Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, and The Yale Repertory Theater. Sam is a teaching artist and guest director at The Juilliard School and has taught and directed at NYU Graduate Acting, ACT, Williams College, and Cornell. He is a recipient of a Princess Grace Award, a Theater Hall of Fame Fellowship, and is a Wooster Group Associate Artist, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect.
ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director) is the award winning Off-Broadway theater company dedicated to producing great plays simply and truthfully utilizing an artistic ensemble. Atlantic believes that the story of the play and the intent of the playwright are at the core of the creative process. Atlantic maintains an ensemble of acclaimed actors, writers and directors including Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and director David Mamet and Academy Award® nominated actor William H. Macy who founded Atlantic twenty five years ago in 1985.
Atlantic and Neil Pepe were awarded a 2009 Drama Desk Award last season for "exceptional craftsmanship, dedication to excellence and productions that engage, inspire and enlighten." In 2006, Atlantic was awarded the Lucille Lortel Prize for Outstanding Body of Work as its critically acclaimed production of Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant Of Inishmore transferred to Broadway, where it was nominated for five 2006 Tony Awards® including Best Play.
Atlantic's acclaimed world premiere production of its first musical Spring Awakening, with music by Duncan Sheik, book and lyrics by Steven Sater and direction by Michael Mayer, won 8 Tony Awards®, including Best Musical.
Last season, Atlantic and Druid's critically acclaimed production of Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, directed by Tony Award® winner Garry Hynes, was extended three times and received four 2009 Lucille Lortel Award nominations including Outstanding Revival, three Outer Critics Circle Award nominations including Outstanding Revival, a Drama League Award nomination for Distinguished Revival, and was awarded a 2009 Lortel for Outstanding Ensemble Performance.
Since its inception, Atlantic has produced over 125 productions including the Tony Award® winning play The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the world premieres of Academy Award® winner Ethan Coen's comedies Almost an Evening and Offices, Woody Allen's A Second Hand Memory and Writer's Block, David Mamet's Romance and his adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance, the musicals Spring Awakening and 10 Million Miles, Conor McPherson's Port Authority, Peter Parnell's Trumpery, Lucy Thurber's Scarcity, Annie Baker's Body Awareness, Beau Willimon's Farragut North, Bekah Brunstetter's Oohrah!, David Pittu's What's That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling, Leslie Ayvazian's Make Me, Tom Donaghy's Minutes From The Blue Route, Edwin Sanchez's Trafficking in Broken Hearts, the American premieres of Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange, Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol, Jez Butterworth's The Night Heron, the New York premieres of David Mamet's Keep Your Pantheon and School, Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song and Mojo, Rolin Jones' The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow and Peter Parnell's The Cider House Rules as well as revivals of David Mamet's American Buffalo and Edmond, Harold Pinter's The Hothouse and the double bill of Celebration and The Room and Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice.
DUSK RINGS A BELL will play Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30p and Saturday and Sunday at 2:30pm.
All tickets are $45 and will be available beginning Monday, April 12, 2010 by calling Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 (
ticketcentral.com) or in person at the ATLANTIC STAGE 2 box office located at 330 West 16th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues).
Purchase an "All -In-One Membership" and see every main stage and Atlantic Stage 2 production for $195 (plus an $8 service charge).
For general inquiries and/or group sales for both the main stage Linda Gross Theater and Atlantic Stage 2, call 212-645-1242.
For more information, visit
www.atlantictheater.org.
Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.
