New Repertory Theater Launches in Philadelphia This Summer

Temple Repertory Theater, a newly-created professional company of artists closely associated with the Department of Theater at Temple University, announces the launch of its inaugural season this summer in Philadelphia. Under the leadership of Executive Producer Roberta Sloan and Artistic Director Dan Kern (Barrymore Award-winning director of Skylight at Lantern Theater Company), Temple Repertory Theater will create actor-driven productions that focus on the professional excellence of the actor and mastery of the text to create a personal and dynamic audience experience. To achieve this, The Audience will sit in a disarmingly intimate configuration-up close and personal with the stage and the actors-to literally thrust them into the action of the play. This refreshing focus will be brought to life by a group of accomplished professional actors with Broadway, New York, national, and regional credits currently working towards their Master of Fine Arts degrees at Temple University, combined with Temple-affiliated directors, designers and theater artists collaborating as a repertory company. The inaugural 2010 Season will feature two dramatic masterworks in rotating rep, Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters and William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and is scheduled to begin at Temple's Tomlinson Theater on the northern half of the Avenue of the Arts on July 9-10, 2010 with back-to-back Opening Nights.

The summer launch of Temple Repertory Theater marks the culmination of extensive planning and programming aimed at bringing a fresh professional company to Philadelphia audiences. In a statement, Artistic Director Dan Kern said: "The vision for this new theater is to create a resident company of professional actors, directors, designers and other theater artists who together will produce theater that is aimed at the highest levels of artistic achievement. We are extremely grateful to Temple University for its support and encouragement as we begin our first season of professional theater."

Temple Repertory Theater will feature a group of professional actors currently enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Acting program at Temple University, a two-year program specifically designed for mid-career actors interested in pursuing an advanced degree. The current roster of actors have extensive national and regional credits, and includes:

· Obie Award winner Yvette Ganier who was recently seen on Broadway in the star-studded revival of The Miracle Worker, and also of Broadway's King Hedley II. She has been featured in roles at Playwrights Horizon, Royal National Theatre (London), and the Steppenwolf in Chicago, among others.

· Gregg Almquist, actor of stage and screen, whose credits include Broadway's I'm Not Rappaport and Richard III (Lincoln Center), extensive regional theater work, the films of Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, and roles on Law & Order and The Practice, and more.

· Rebecca Rich, whose credits include the national tour of Guys and Dolls, Off-Broadway's The Naughty Knight and Zombie Prom (original cast recording), and a featured guest spot on the hit Comedy Central show Strangers with Candy.

· Rob Kahn, of television's C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation, among others, and theater credits including at famed venues Steppenwolf and Second City in Chicago and the role of Picasso in the national tour of Steve Martin's acclaimed Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

· Popular Philadelphia actor Geneviève Perrier, who is a Barrymore Award winner for Best Leading Actress in a Play for Lantern Theater Company's Skylight, and a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

· Kate Czajkowski, member of the Tony Award®-winning regional Intiman Theater in Seattle, with roles in Seattle Shakespeare's Pericles, the world premiere of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and Annie Sullivan in a 39-state national tour of The Miracle Worker.

· Carl Granieri, award-winning actor and graduate of the Master's program in Theatre at Villanova University, seen recently in Act II Playhouse's critically acclaimed production of On Golden Pond, plus  Necropolis at the Prague Fringe Festival and regional stage credits with companies such as Amaryllis Theatre, Madhouse Theatre, Philadelphia Dramatists, and Cardboard Box Collaborative.

· New York-trained actor Steve Kuhel, with NYC performances as Macbeth at Hudson Shakespeare and Tribeca Theater's The Palooka, and locally in the world premiere of Unusual Acts of Devotion at Philadelphia Theatre Company and the title role in the Philly Fringe hit Pushkin at Boldino.

A daring staging of Three Sisters (1900) will strip the play of its period trappings and focus squarely on Anton Chekhov's extraordinary characters, the Prozorovs, a privileged family in turn of the 20th Century Russia. Sisters Olga, Masha, and Irina yearn for the excitement of Moscow, but find themselves stuck-literally, existentially-in the listless, boring countryside, imagining the futures that escaped them once life got in the way. A meditation on lost dreams, audiences will undoubtedly recognize Three Sisters as an aching metaphor for the death of the America Dream. This enduring masterwork will be directed by Dan Kern, winner of the Barrymore Award for Lantern Theater Company's Skylight, and the prestigious Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his direction of Juno and the Paycock. An accomplished actor, Kern also won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for his portrayal of Leontes in The Winter's Tale. He currently serves as Head of Acting at the Department of Theater at Temple University.

An audaciously conceived Measure for Measure will reinvent one of Shakespeare's most complex yarns. This darkly funny treatise on justice and fundamentalism in historic Vienna tests the resolve of virtuous Isabella when her brother Claudio, the unfortunate victim of a hypocritically devout moral society, is sentenced to death for impregnating his fiancé. A mirror of our troubling times, Measure for Measure will place Shakespeare's original text in an abstract, contemporary visual landscape. This modernist spin will be directed by Douglas C. Wager, former long-time Artistic Director of the Tony Award®-winning regional Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Wager has extensive regional credits, and also directed the Broadway production of Accidental Death of an Anarchist starring Patti LuPone and Jonathan Pryce, and most recently Off-Broadway with his prize-winning docudrama In Conflict, which won the prestigious Fringe First Award at the 2009 Edinburgh International Fringe. Upon its New York debut at the Barrow Street Theater, chief theater critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times hailed: "Under Mr. Wager's direction, the performers seem painfully in touch with the confused emotions they have been asked to give voice to... [achieving] a biting poignancy."

The design team for both Three Sisters and Measure for Measure consists of some of Philadelphia's most prominent and accomplished theater artists, all of whom graduated from the Master of Fine Arts program at Temple University Theaters, including: prolific scenic designer Dirk Durossette, a key designer in the Philly theater scene for over ten years who was recently nominated for the Barrymore Award for Lantern Theater's Skylight; costume designer Millie Hiibel, a renowned costume and fashion designer with extensive credits across town, including a Barrymore nomination for her work on La Ronde at Lantern; lighting designer John Hoey, who won the Barrymore Award for Arden's Sweeney Todd and has designed extensively for the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Ballet, and the Wilma Theatre, among other local and national venues; and sound designer David O'Connor, a highly-recognized director (Lantern's The Lonesome West; Arden's The Seafarer) who was nominated for a Best Director Barrymore Award for his work on Master Harold... and the boys at Lantern.

Tickets for Temple Repertory Theater will go on sale May 15, 2010. Previews of Three Sisters begin on Saturday, July 3 with an opening date of Friday, July 9, 2010. Previews of Measure for Measure begin on Tuesday, July 6 with an opening date of Saturday, July 10, 2010. Information hotline is 215-204-1334. Full performance schedule will be announced shortly. Website coming soon, linked through http://www.temple.edu/theater.

Temple Repertory Theater is made possible through the generous support of Temple University Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico, an incredible champion of the arts in higher education. The repertory is a collaboration with the Department of Theater at Temple University, headed by department chair and Executive Producer of Temple Theaters, Roberta Sloan, and Artistic Director of Temple Theaters, Douglas C. Wager.

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