Gallery Players Presents DANCING AT LUGHNASA, 12/4-19

The Gallery Players is proud to announce casting and creative team Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel. Directed by Heather Siobhan Curran (The Gallery Players' Artistic Director), this haunting drama comes to Brooklyn December 4-19, 2010.

This extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936. We meet them at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large. The action of the play is told through the memory of the illegitimate son of one of the sisters as he remembers the five women who raised him, his mother and four maiden aunts. Widely regarded as Brian Friel's masterpiece, this haunting play is Friel's tribute to the spirit and valor of the past. Winner of the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.?

"It's a pleasure to bring Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa to our audience in our uniquely intimate Brooklyn space," says Director Heather Siobhan Curran. "A young man reflecting on a past memory of his family at a singular moment is indeed fitting for the holiday season, as we gather with our own family groups.  We see the Mundy family during a Harvest festival circa 1930's Ireland.  Their triumphs, their joys, their pain is vivid and real and lingers as memory truly does. I look forward to sharing this modern masterpiece with our audiences."

The Gallery Players' Dancing at Lughnasa stars: Susan Ferrara*(Taming of the Shrew, Kirkland Theater), Kelsey Formost, Zac Hoogendyk* (Macbeth, Texas Shakespeare Festival), Amanda McCallum* (Anthony and Cleopatra, Guthrie Theater), Therese Plaehn*, Jasper Soffer, Richard Vernon* (Broadway: Poor Murderer; Off-Broadway: Flamingo Court) and Leigh Williams* (Proof, Cider Mill Playhouse) *appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association

Dancing at Lughnasa is directed by The Gallery Players' Artistic Director Heather Siobhan Curran  and produced by Hannah Mason for The Gallery Players. Associate Producer is Krystal Roccaro, the Set Designer is Jared Rutherford, the Costume Designer is Travis Chinick, the Lighting Designer is Richard Chamblin, Meagan Miller-McKeever designs the Props, the Sound Designer is Julianne Merrill, the Choreographer is Erin Porvaznika and Leigh Williams is the Dialect Coach.

Dancing at Lughnasa opens Saturday, December 4, 2010 and continues Thursdays and Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 2 pm and 8 pm, and Sundays at 3 pm through Sunday, December 19, 2010. ?

Tickets to Dancing at Lughnasa at The Gallery Players are just $18 for adults, $14 for Seniors & Children 12 and under. Individual tickets can be purchased by calling TheaterMania at (212) 352-3101, or online at www.galleryplayers.com. The Gallery Players is located at 199 14th St., between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Take the F Train to 4th Ave. or the R Train to 9th Street. By car: BQE to Hamilton Avenue to 14th Street.

??A New York institution since 1967, The Gallery Players has served actors and audiences alike for more than 4 decades by showcasing burgeoning new talent and offering a home base for theater professionals. Its eclectic programming of intimate revivals and ambitious new work in inventive productions has earned it the reputation of "New York's Best Kept Secret." The Gallery Players is the recipient of the Off-Off Broadway Review's 2000 Award for Lifetime Achievement and was the recipient of New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical in 2007, 2008 & 2009 for their productions of Urinetown! the musical, Yank! A New Musical, and Like You Like It. Among its famous alumni are founding member Harvey Fierstein; Broadway regulars Nancy Anderson, Jeffry Denman and Diedre Goodwin; New York theater personality Seth Rudetsky and many others.

The Gallery Players' 44th season continues in 2011 with The Drowsy Chaperone, January 29-February 20, 2011, then August Wilson's Jitney, March 19 - April 3, 2011, and Oliver!, April 30 - May 22, 2011 closes out the main stage season. The Gallery Players' summer celebration of new works continues with The 14th Annual Black Box New Play Festival, June 2 - 26th, 2011.

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