Trinity Rep to Close Season with World Premiere of New Sarah Ruhl & Todd Almond Musical

By: May. 01, 2015
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Trinity Rep closes out Season 51: The Necessity of Human Connection with the world premiere of Tony-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl and composer Todd Almond's Melancholy Play: a chamber musical, directed by Obie Award-winner Liesl Tommy. Melancholy Play: a chamber musical runs May 28 through June 28, 2015 in Trinity Rep's Dowling Theater.

Tilly is a bank teller, and she's depressed. She's so beautifully, alluringly melancholic that everyone she meets falls in love with her, including her therapist, her hairdresser and her tailor. But what happens when she stops being so sad? In two lyrical, poetic parts, Melancholy Play: a chamber musical offers a whimsical take on the human quest for love.

"We're thrilled to be producing this incredible world premiere with a rock star artistic and production team that brings Sarah and Liesl back to Providence," Artistic Director Curt Columbus says of playwright Sarah Ruhl, a graduate of Brown University, and director Liesl Tommy, a graduate of the Trinity Rep Conservatory. "Sarah, Todd and Liesl are tremendous artists in their own right, and their spectacular collaboration will bring this musical to life."

Events related to Melancholy Play: a chamber musical include the final session of Trinity Rep's Great Writers series on Monday, June 1, 2015 at 7:00 pm in Trinity Rep's Dowling Theater, exploring the work of playwright Sarah Ruhl. Additionally, an outdoor performance by the cast featuring songs from the play will be held as part of at the Providence International Arts Festival on Saturday, June 13th at 5 pm in Adrian Hall Way. Finally, Brown University will host a book signing featuring playwright Sarah Ruhl; the date is TBD. Please visit our website at www.trinityrep.com for more information. Details will be posted online as they become available. All events are free and open to the public.

This chamber musical features Trinity Rep resident acting company members Mia Ellis, Rebecca Gibel, Charlie Thurston, Rachael Warren and Joe Wilson, Jr. The production team includes Broken Chord (sound design), Jacob A. Climer (costume design), Clint Ramos (set design), Andrew Smithson (musical direction), Peter West (lighting design) and Christopher Windom (choreography).

Playwright Sarah Ruhl's most recent play Stage Kiss had its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2011. Her plays include In The Next Room, or the Vibrator Play (Glickman Prize, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony nominee for Best Play), The Clean House (Susan Smith Blackburn award, 2004, finalist for Pulitzer Prize, 2005), Dead Man's Cell Phone, (Helen Hayes award for best new play), Demeter in the City (nominated for 9 NAACP awards), Eurydice, Melancholy Play, Orlando, a new version of Chekhov's Three Sisters, and Passion Play (Kennedy Center Fourth Forum Freedom Award). Her plays have premiered at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, produced by Lincoln Center Theater; off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights' Horizons, and Second Stage; and regionally at Berkeley Repertory Theater, Yale Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, Cornerstone Theater, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Cincinnati Playhouse, and the Piven Theater Workshop in Chicago, as well being produced at many other theaters across the country. Her plays have also been performed in England, Poland, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia, and have been translated into Spanish, Polish, Russian, Korean and Arabic. Sarah received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel, and is originally from Chicago. In 2003, she was the recipient of a Helen Merrill award and a Whiting Writers' award, a PEN/Laura Pels award, and in 2006 was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work is published by TCG and Sam French, and she is a member of New Dramatists and 13P. She lives in New York City with her family.

Playwright Todd Almond is a composer, lyricist, and playwright. For The Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park, he wrote the music and lyrics for the Public Works production of The Tempest at the Delacorte Theater (a production in which he also starred as Ariel). His musicals include Girlfriend (Berkeley Rep., and Actors Theatre of Louisville, with songwriter Matthew Sweet, dir: Les Waters); Melancholy Play (13P, with playwright Sarah Ruhl, dir: Davis McCallum); We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Yale Repertory Theater, with playwright Adam Bock, dir: Anne Kauffman); On The Levee (LCT3, dir: Lear deBessonet); The Odyssey (The Old Globe, dir: Lear deBessonet) and Iowa (Playwrights Horizons, 2015, with playwright Jenny Schwartz, dir: Ken Rus Schmoll). Almond music-directed and arranged Sherie Rene Scott's hit show Piece of Meat (54 Below and Hippodrome in London) and can be heard on Laura Benanti's live album "In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention." He has released two solo albums: "Mexico City," and "Memorial Day."

Director Liesl Tommy's Off-Broadway credits include Appropriate (Obie Award; Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth), The Good Negro (The Public Theater, Dallas Theater Center), Angela's Mixtape (Synchronicity Performance Group, New Georges), A Stone's Throw (Women's Project). Regional/international: Les Miserables (Dallas Theater Center), Party People (OSF, Berkeley Rep), The White Man - A Complex Declaration of Love (DanskDansk Theatre, Denmark), Peggy Picket Sees the Face of God (Luminato Festival/Canadian Stage), Eclipsed (Yale Rep, Woolly Mammoth), A History of Light (Contemporary American Theatre Festival), Hamlet (California Shakespeare), A Raisin in the Sun, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Huntington), American Buffalo (Baltimore Centre Stage), He is Here He Says I Say (Sundance East Africa), The Piano Lesson (Yale Rep), Ruined (OSF, La Jolla, Huntington, Berkeley Rep), Crimes of the Heart(McCarter), Book of Life (Sundance East Africa), Yankee Tavern, Stick Fly (CATF), A Christmas Carol (Trinity Rep). Liesl is an Artist Trustee on the Sundance Institute Board, a Program Associate at Sundance Institute Theatre program and the Associate Director at Berkeley Rep. She was awarded the inaugural Susan Stroman Directing Award from the Vineyard Theater, the Alan Schneider Award from TCG, the NEA/TCG Directors Grant and the New York Theatre Workshop Casting/Directing Fellowship. Liesl has guest directed at Juilliard, Trinity Rep/Brown University's MFA Directing Program, The Strasberg Institute, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Liesl is a proud alum of Trinity Rep Conservatory. She is a native of Cape Town, South Africa.

Continuing Trinity Rep's tradition of offering affordable tickets for all, the theater will have discounted previews of Melancholy Play: a chamber musical from May 28 - June 2, 2015. Friday, May 29 is a Pay What You Can (PWYC) performance. Tickets go on sale at 6:30pm that evening, and are limited to one per person.

Melancholy Play: a chamber musical is supported by the NCTF/Ford Foundation 50th Anniversary Fund for New Work. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how NEA grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

Trinity Rep's 2014-2015 season is sponsored by NBC 10, with supporting sponsors Cox Media, Ocean State Job Lot, Rhode Island Monthly, RISCA and the theater's official airline, Southwest Airlines.

The State Theater of Rhode Island, Trinity Repertory Company is now in its 51st season. Since its founding in 1963, Trinity Repertory Company has been one of the most respected regional theaters in the country. Featuring the last permanent resident acting company in America, Trinity Rep presents a balance of world premiere, contemporary, and classic works for an estimated annual audience of approximately 145,000. Since 1963, the theater has produced 63 world premieres, mounted national and international tours, and, through its MFA program, trained hundreds of new actors and directors.

This season marks the 48th year of Project Discovery, Trinity Rep's pioneering educational outreach program. Last season, Trinity Rep's educational programs reached over 16,000 Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut students through matinees as well as in-school residencies and workshops. Brown University/Trinity Rep offers professional training for actors and directors in a three-year MFA program. Subscriptions for Trinity Rep's 2015-2016 are now on sale, which includes Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein, The Hunchback of Seville by Charise Castro Smith, To Kill a Mockingbird book by Harper Lee, adapted by Christopher Sergel, A World Premiere Play (to be announced Summer 2015) and Oklahoma! music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. For more information, call the box office at (401) 351-4242 or visit Trinity Rep's website at www.trinityrep.com.



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