Theatre for a New Audience Presents THE BROKEN HEART

The Broken Heart, a 1629 tragic-comic play written by John Ford (Tis Pity She's a Whore), directed by Selina Cartmell in her American debut is Theatre for a New Audience's fourth production of the 2011 - 2012 theatre season.

This, the Off Broadway premiere of The Broken Heart, will begin previews on Saturday, February 4, at 8:00pm for an opening Sunday, February 12, at 7:00pm for a run scheduled through Sunday, March 4, at The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42ND Street® project, 229 West 42nd Street.

The Broken Heart will have scenery by Antje Ellermann, costumes by Susan Hilferty, lighting by Marcus Doshi, choreography by Annie-B Parson and original music by David Van Tieghem. The voice director is Andrew Wade and J. Allen Suddeth is the fight director.

About the show: "Though set in Sparta, the world of Ford's play more closely resembles the 17th century court of Charles II. The main plot engines: a young woman is forced to marry a ridiculously jealous codger; a cruel nobleman is bent on frustrating his sister's happiness; a princess tries to stand aloof from the emotional discord, but lives to feel love ruining her composure."

"This is not the only John Ford play in town this year," said Jeffrey Horowitz, the Founding Artistic Director of Theatre for a New Audience. "Cheek by Jowl's production of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore will bow at The Brooklyn Academy Of Music in March. It is the first time in New York theatre that two major productions of Ford are playing in the same season."

The Broken Heart will be directed by Selina Cartmell in her American debut. Ms. Cartmell calls The Broken Heart Ford's "most experimental play," pointing to its unique "black humor" and surprising twists on the revenge genre that steer the action to "places the audience never anticipates. It confronts timeless issues of sexual and gender relationships. The play is both ancient and modern – it's a world where dance, music and silence are interwoven seamlessly with the text, voice and character."

The Broken Heart was last seen in New York in an Off-Off Broadway production 30 years ago, and before that (not counting amateur productions) in Los Angeles in 1932.

Ms. Cartmell, a British artist living in Ireland, was the 2007 protégé to Julie Taymor as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Ms. Cartmell has directed at the Royal Shakespeare Company (Marina Carr’s Cordelia’s Dream) and has been commissioned by The Abbey Theatre to create a new version of W.B. Yeats's Deidre. For her production of Medea, she was the Winner of the 2011 Irish Times Best Director Award.

The Acting Company are Bianca Amato (Broadway: Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia); Justin Blanchard (Theatre for a New Audience: Macbeth; Red Bull Theater: The Witch of Edmonton; Broadway: Journey's End); Annika Boras (Theatre for a New Audience: Lady Macbeth opposite John Douglas Thompson, Chair - Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress); Jacob Fishel (New York Shakespeare Festival: Titus Andronicus, Macbeth); Olwen Fouéré (leading roles at Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, The Gate Theatre and at the Abby Theatre Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow directed by Selina Cartmell); Philip Goodwin (Theatre for a New Audience: Henry VI – Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Performance, Cymbeline directed by Bartlett Sher; Troilus and Cressida directed by Sir Peter Hall; Broadway: Tartuffe, The Diary of Anne Frank, The School for Scandal); Ian Holcomb (Theatre for a New Audience: Macbeth); John Keating (Theatre for a New Audience: Measure for Measure; Atlantic Theater: The New York Idea); Robert Langdon Lloyd (Theatre for a New Audience: Othello, Measure for Measure, Macbeth; International: Mahabharata directed by Peter Brook and company member of the Royal Shakespeare Company); Tom Nelis (Theatre for a New Audience: The Merchant of Venice; Broadway: Enron; founding member, Siti Company); Saxon Palmer (Theatre for a New Audience: Macbeth, Ohio Stage Murders, The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice); Margaret Loesser Robinson (Signature Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre); and Andrew Weems (Theatre for a New Audience: Troilus and Cressida – 2001 Bayfield Award, Cymbeline – Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor, The Green Bird both at Theatre for a New Audience and Broadway; Lincoln Center Theater: Blood and Gifts).

Annie-B Parson’s awards include a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, a 2002 and 2010 BESSIE award, and New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships in 2005 and 2000. Outside of her own company, Big Dance, Ms. Parson created choreography for David Byrne in for his world tour as she will for his Here Lies Love at The Public Theater later this year. She received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her choreography in Sarah Ruhl's Orlando.

David Van Tieghem has been composing music for Broadway, Off Broadway and film for over two decades. He received a 1996 Drama Desk Award nomination for The Grey Zone, and was awarded a 1996 Obie for Sustained Excellence of Music. He was also nominated for a 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design for Scotland Road and, the next year, Mr. Van Tieghem received two 1999 Drama Desk Award nominations - Outstanding Music in a Play for The Turn of the Screw and Outstanding Sound Design for Stop Kiss.

Antje Ellermann is the scenic designer. At Theatre for a New Audience, Ms. Ellermann has designed Hamlet, directed by David Esbjornson. Other designs in New York include Dancing at Lughnasa at Irish Rep, Invasion, Liberty City, Nine Parts of Desire and several shows with Juilliard, and The Play Company. Regionally, Ms. Ellermann's work has been seen at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Cleveland Play House, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Trinity Rep, Huntington Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Arena Stage, Denver Center Theatre Company, Geffen Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Mass Moca, Bard Summerscape and Pittsburgh Opera Center. She has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award, an Ovation Award and a Lucille Lortel Award for Nine Parts of Desire and for an Emmy Award for "Becoming American" on PBS.

Costume designer Susan Hilferty has designed more than 300 productions for theatres across America and internationally. Directorial collaborators include Athol Fugard (set, costumes, co-director), Mayer, Lapine, Falls, Woodruff, Mantello, Akalaitis, Wright, Lamos, Galati, McAnuff, Ott, Petrarca, Nelson, Ashley, Leon, Laurie Anderson, Kushner, Hynes and Mann. Recent work includes Taylor Swift "Speak Now” World Tour; Broadway: Wonderland, Sondheim on Sondheim, Spring Awakening (Tony nomination), Lestat (Tony nomination), Assassins, Into the Woods (Hewes Award, Tony nomination). She chairs the Graduate Design Department at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Her numerous awards include the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Wicked.

Lighting designer Marcus Doshi designs for theatre, opera and dance as well as collaborating with artists and architects on a wide array of non theatrical ventures. With Theatre for a New Audience: Othello (Lortel Award nomination), Hamlet (Drama Desk and Henry Hewes nominations), Measure for Measure and Macbeth. His work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Castres, Venice, Vienna, Kuwait, Mumbai, New Delhi, Phnom Penh and Jakarta, and most recently in Beirut, Lebanon and Tunis and Sousse, Tunisia with the international tour of The Speaker's Progress, a play written in the shadow of the Arab Spring, with Sabab Theatre. His work has been seen in the United States with Seattle, Florentine, Boston Lyric, and Baltimore Operas, Lincoln Center Festival, New York Theatre Works, Signature, Civilians, Seattle Rep, Steppenwolf, Huntington, Chicago Shakespeare, Yale Rep, among others.

Voice Director Andrew Wade is Resident Director of Voice at Theatre for a New Audience where he has coached Macbeth, Hamlet, Chair and Notes from Underground and will coach The Taming of the Shrew later this season. Head of Voice, RSC, 1990–2003. Assistant Voice Director, RSC, 1987–1990. Co-directed/devised "Journeys," "Words, Words, Words," "More Words" and "Lifespan" with Cicely Berry for BBC World Service, awarded Bronze Medal, International Radio Festival, New York, 2000. He was Verse Consultant for Shakespeare in Love. Mr. Wade teaches, lectures and voice coaches internationally and is Adjunct Faculty at Juilliard and Stella Adler Studio. He was Voice and Text Consultant for The Acting Company and Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry V, Antony and Cleopatra, Comedy of Errors, Othello, As You Like It, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Comedy of Errors and Winter's Tale.

Theatre for a New Audience, www.tfana.org, was founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, artistic director. Its mission is to develop and vitalize the performance and study of Shakespeare and classic drama. The Theatre has produced twenty-eight of the Bard's plays with directors who include Sir Peter Hall, Mark Rylance, Bartlett Sher and Julie Taymor, and a diverse repertory by authors such as Harley Granville Barker, Edward Bond and Adrienne Kennedy. It has played on Broadway, toured nationally and internationally. In 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford-upon-Avon. Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered at the RSC and in 2007, Theatre for a New Audience was invited to return with The Merchant of Venice starring F. Murray Abraham and directed by Darko Tresnjak. In June, 2011, Theatre for a New Audience broke ground for its first home, a center for Shakespeare and classic drama in downtown Brooklyn in the BAM Cultural District slated to open in 2013.

Theatre for a New Audience’s production of The Broken Heart is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Box Office:

Tickets are $75 and may be purchased via phone at 646-223-3010 or via the web at www.dukeon42.org.

$10.00 New Deal tickets, ages 25 and under or full-time students, may be purchased in advance on a first come, first served basis. See www.tfana.org. Valid ID listing proof of age or enrollment as a full-time student required.