Richard Nelson's THE APPLE FAMILY PLAYS to Launch European Tour

The Public Theater announced today that Richard Nelson's award-winning THE APPLE FAMILY PLAYS: SCENES FROM LIFE IN THE COUNTRY will tour Europe for five weeks beginning April 23 at The Find Festival in Berlin. The other tour venues include The May International Festival in Weisbaden, Germany; The Brighton Festival in the United Kingdom; and the Vienna Festival in Austria where the tour will conclude on May 23. The tour is being produced by David Eden, Executive Producer for David Eden Productions, and co-produced and general managed by Tim Smith for Pemberley Productions.

The European tour will feature original company members Maryann Plunkett (Barbara), Jay O. Sanders (Richard), Jon DeVries (Benjamin), and Sally Murphy (Jane), along with new cast members Mariann Mayberry (Marian) and Jesse Pennington (Tim).

Beginning in 2010, Tony Award winner Richard Nelson premiered a new play each year at The Public Theater about the fictional, liberal Apple family of Rhinebeck, New York. These plays about family, politics, change, and the way we live today burst with remarkable immediacy. Each of The Apple Family Plays originally premiered on the night on which it is set. In That Hopey Changey Thing, the Apples reflect on the state of their family and discuss memory, manners and politics as polls close on mid-term election night on November 2, 2010 and a groundswell of conservative sentiment flips Congress on its head. In Sweet and Sad, on November 11, 2011, a family brunch stirs up discussions of loss, remembrance and a decade of change. Sorry, which premiered on November 6, 2012, finds the Apples sorting through family anxieties and confusion on the day of electing the President. The series finally concluded on November 23, 2013 with Regular Singing, which premiered on the 50th Anniversary of JFK's assassination that shocked the world.

"A rare and radiant mirror on the way we live - a deeply intimate drama with a superb ensemble!
To my knowledge, no previous works of theater have been topical
in the resonant and specific ways of The Apple Family Plays." - Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

THE APPLE FAMILY PLAYS first premiered as part of The Public's Pub Lab series and was the 2012 recipient of the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance and the 2012 Obie Award for Performance for Sweet and Sad. The plays were filmed by PBS and aired nationally beginning in October, 2014.

THE APPLE FAMILY PLAYS feature scenic and costume design by Susan Hilferty; lighting design by Jennifer Tipton; and sound design by Scott Lehrer and Will Pickens.

RICHARD NELSON (Playwright, Director) wrote and directed all four acclaimed plays The Apple Family Plays: Scenes from Life in the Country at The Public Theater. His additional credits for The Public include Conversations in Tusculum. His other plays include Nikolai and the Others, Goodnight Children Everywhere, Two Shakespearean Actors, Some American Abroad, Madame Melville, New England, Frank's Home, Rodney's Wife, Franny's Way, The General from America, The Vienna Notes, and others. His musicals include James Joyce's The Dead, for which he won a Tony Award; and My Life with Albertine. His films include Hyde Park on Hudson, Ethan Frome, and Sensibility and Sense. He is a recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has produced ten of his plays.

JON DEVRIES (Benjamin) has appeared at The Public Theater in Regular Singing, Sorry, Sweet and Sad, That Hopey Changey Thing, As You Like It, One Flea Spare, Titus Andronicus, The Cherry Orchard, Agamemnon, and Ballad of Soapy Smith. His Broadway credits include Devour the Snow, Execution of Justice, Major Barbara, Loose Ends, and Inspector General. His additional Off-Broadway credits include Galileo, Accomplices, Goodnight Children Everywhere, General From America, Sight Unseen, Hamlet, Richard II, and Oedipus. He performed in the National Tour of August: Osage County. His select Film and TV credits include Kill Your Darlings; American Gangster; The International; Evening; The Baxter; "Law & Order"; and "Boardwalk Empire."

MARIANN MAYBERRY (Marian) has performed on Broadway in August: Osage County; Metamorphoses; and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Her Off-Broadway credits include Go Back To Where You Are and The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Additionally she has been an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 1993. Her film and television credits include Dogman, War of the Worlds, The Company, Life Sentence, "Blue Bloods," "Person of Interest," and "Mercy."

SALLY MURPHY (Jane) has appeared at The Public Theater in Regular Singing, Sorry, Sweet and Sad, andThat Hopey Changey Thing, Her Broadway credits include August: Osage County; Fiddler On The Roof; The Wild Party; Carousel; and The Grapes Of Wrath. She's performed at The National Theater in London in August: Osage County and The Grapes Of Wrath. Her additional Off-Broadway credits include Bernarda Alba; A Man Of No Importance; and Brutal Imagination. As a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company she's performed in Sex With Strangers, Time Stands Still, The Crucible, Skylight, and Uncle Vanya. Her film and television credits include Pollock, Fearless, Scent Of A Woman, "The Good Wife," "Mob Doctor," "If These Walls Could Talk" (HBO), and PBS' Great Performances.

JESSE PENNINGTON (Tim) has performed at The Public Theater in The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter's Tale. His additional Off-Broadway credits include A Place at the Table, Franny's Way, The General From America, Rodney's Wife, The False Servant, Richard II, and Bootycandy. Regionally he has performed in Maple and Vine, Vera Laughed, Major Barbara, James Joyce's The Dead, and Goodnight Children Everywhere. His film credits include When Zachary Beaver Came to Town and American Gun.

MARYANN PLUNKETT (Barbara) has appeared at The Public Theater in Regular Singing, Sorry, Sweet and Sad, and That Hopey Changey Thing. Her Broadway credits include A Man For All Seasons, The Crucible, Saint Joan, Me and My Girl (Tony Award), Sunday in the Park..., and Agnes of God. Her additional Off-Broadway credits include Rodney's Wife, Jayson With A Y, and Aristocrats. She is a founding member of Portland Stage. Her television and film credits include "House of Cards," "The Black List," "Law & Order," A True Story, Company Men, Blue Valentine, and Fairhaven.

JAY O. SANDERS (Richard) has appeared at The Public Theater in Regular Singing, Sorry, Sweet and Sad, and That Hopey Changey Thing, Titus Andronicus (Titus); Twelfth Night (Toby Belch); Hamlet (Ghost, Player King, Gravedigger); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Bottom); Stuff Happens (George W. Bush - Drama Desk); and a workshop of his own play, Unexplored Interior. On Broadway he's appeared in Pygmalion. At The National in London he's appeared in Theater of War. He has appeared in numerous films and television programs.

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