Jon Robin Baitz's OTHER DESERT CITIES to Open at The Old Vic on March 24

By: Jan. 07, 2014
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The Old Vic presents the UK premiere of Jon Robin Baitz's acclaimed play, Other Desert Cities, directed by Lindsay Posner, which will be the first in a season of productions to be presented in-the-round at The Old Vic. Reprising the transformation of The Old Vic's auditorium into the round, first seen for the award-winning 2008 production of The Norman Conquests, this ambitious project is once more made possible by the generous support of CQS. The season of productions is supported for the fourth consecutive year by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Other Desert Cities is a fierce and funny drama deftly exploring family politics, love, loss and redemption. In the play, Brooke Wyeth returns to the family home in Palm Springs for the first time in six years with some incendiary news for her Republican parents Polly and Lyman, her brother Trip and her recovering alcoholic aunt Silda. She is about to publish a memoir about her family, exposing a pivotal moment in their painful and explosive past, her actions threatening to push fractured family relations to a point beyond repair.

Other Desert Cities will be previewing at The Old Vic from 13 March 2014 with a press night on 24 March. The piece was first seen in 2010 at New York's Lincoln Center, where it won the Outer Critics' Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play before enjoying even greater success on Broadway and gaining five nominations for the 2012 Tony Awards. Additionally, Other Desert Cities was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Jon Robin Baitz is a celebrated American playwright, screenwriter and television producer and is perhaps best known in this country for his internationally successful TV series, Brothers and Sisters and Sisters and Sisters and Sisters, about a wealthy Californian family who grapple with love, loss and living in the modern age. His plays include: The Substance of Fire, A Fair Country, and Ten Unknowns, (all produced at The Lincoln Centre), The Paris Letter, The Film Society, Mizlansky/Zilinsky and Three Hotels as well as a new version of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Award, a Drama Desk Award, is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for A Fair Country. He won a Humanitas Award for the PBS-TV's American Playhouse, with his version of Three Hotels, which he also directed.

Lindsay Posner Lindsay Posner Lindsay Posner Lindsay Posner's most recent directing credit at The Old Vic was Terence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy starring Henry Goodman, which transferred to New York in October where it enjoyed a critically acclaimed run at the Roundabout Theatre, starring Roger Rees. His productions of Noises Off (The Old Vic and West End) toured theatres across the UK and Ireland from March to July 2013. Lindsay was Associate Director at the Royal Court Theatre from 1987 to 1992 where his production of Death and The Maiden won two Olivier Awards. His many other theatre credits include Butley starring Dominic West (Duchess), An Ideal Husband starring Samantha Bond and Rachael Stirling (Vaudeville), Fool For Love starring Juliette Lewis (Apollo), Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge starring Ken Stott (Duke of York's, nominated for four Olivier Awards), Carousel (Savoy), Fiddler on The Roof (Sheffield and Savoy), House of Games, Tom and Viv, The Hypochondriac, Romance (Almeida), A Life in the Theatre (Apollo), the world premiere of Power by Nick Dear, Tartuffe (National), Twelfth Night, Volpone, The Taming of the Shrew and The Rivals (RSC), Abigail's Party (Menier Chocolate Factory) and Uncle Vanya (Vaudeville).

For more information visit http://www.oldvictheatre.com/other-desert-cities/.



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