Atlantic's Romance by David Mamet announces full cast

Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Managing Director) is proud to announce full casting for the world premiere of David Mamet's new comedy ROMANCE. Following many acclaimed revivals of Mamet's plays, ROMANCE marks Atlantic's first world premiere by its co-founder. ROMANCE begins previews on Wednesday, February 9, 2005 and will officially open on Tuesday, March 1. The limited engagement concludes on Sunday, April 3, 2005.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Atlantic Theater Company co-founder David Mamet returns to Atlantic with the World Premiere of his new comedy. Set in a modern day courtroom, ROMANCE is a farce about those things worth cherishing, and so worth making fun of. Artistic director Neil Pepe, who recently staged Atlantic's production of Jez Butterworth's The Night Heron and Howard Korder's Sea of Tranquility directs.

The ensemble features Atlantic Theater Company Members Larry Bryggman (direct from the acclaimed Broadway revival of Twelve Angry Men and twice Tony Award nominated for Proof and Picnic), Steven Goldstein (Mamet's House of Games, Broadway's Our Town), Steven Hawley (Atlantic's Richard Cory) and guest artists Bob Balaban (produced and appeared in the Academy and Golden Globe Award winning film Gosford Park and appeared in Christopher Guest's hit film Waiting for Guffman), Jim Frangione (Mamet's Heist, Broadway's The Old Neighborhood), Keith Nobbs (MTC's Fuddy Meers, Broadway's The Lion in Winter) and Christopher Evan Welch (Broadway's The Crucible, Writer's Block).

Casting for ROMANCE is by Bernard Telsey Casting. Scenic design is by Robert Brill, lighting design by James S. Ingalls, costume design by Sarah Edwards and sound design by Obadiah Eaves.

BIOGRAPHIES

David Mamet (Playwright). Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and two-time Oscar nominee, director, essayist, novelist and poet David Mamet has been a force in American theater since 1976, when his first staged plays immediately won Obie and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. The writer first won recognition with his plays Sexual Perversity in Chicago and American Buffalo (later filmed with Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz). When both plays opened in New York in 1976, Mamet won the Obie Award for distinguished play writing and American Buffalo was voted Best Play by the New York Drama Critics Circle. In 1978, he received the Outer Critics Circle Award for his contribution to American theater. In 1984, Glengarry Glen Ross won Mamet another New York Drama Critics Circle Best Play award, four Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a major motion picture in 1992. Other plays include Edmond and The Cryptogram (both Obie Award winners), as well as The Water Engine, A Life in the Theatre, Lakeboat, Speed the Plow and The Old Neighborhood, Boston Marriage, Dr. Faustus and Romance. In related work, he has adapted four works by Chekhov: Vint, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya, and recently adapted Harley Granville Barker's play The Voysey Inheritance. Spartan marked Mamet's ninth film as writer-director. His critically acclaimed debut feature House of Games, was selected to close the New York Film Festival in 1987. He followed this with his gentle Mafia fable Things Change, co-written with Shel Silverstein, for which Joe Montegna and Don Ameche shared Best Actor honors at the 1988 Venice Film Festival; Homicide, which opened the 1991 Cannes Film Festival; Oleanna in 1994, the sole film he has adapted and directed from one of his plays; The Spanish Prisoner, his acclaimed Hitchcockian thriller, which became one of the most popular independent films of 1998; The Winslow Boy, an adaptation of the famed Terrence Rattigan play starring Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam and Rebecca Pidgeon and State and Main, starring William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rebecca Pidgeon. Mamet has also won acclaim for numerous screenplays, including The Verdict for Sidney Lumet and Wag the Dog for Barry Levinson, which were both nominated for Academy Awards for Best Screenplay. His other screenplays include The Postman Always Rings Twice for Bob Rafelson; The Untouchables for Brian DePalma; We're No Angels, with Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn for Neil Jordan; Hoffa, directed by Danny DeVito and starring Jack Nicholson in the title role; and The Edge, with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. He has written children's plays and books, seven volumes of essays and three novels, numerous magazine articles, and collaborated on many songs with his wife, songwriter and actress Rebecca Pidgeon. Mamet also acted in the TV adaptation of his play, The Water Engine, and played a gambler in Bob Rafelson's movie Black Widow. He taught acting at his alma mater, Goddard College, as well as at the University of Chicago, Yale School of Drama and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where, with William H. Macy, he established a repertory company in 1985, the Atlantic Theater Company.

Bob Balaban (Prosecutor). As an actor, Broadway includes Plaza Suite, The Inspector General (Tony nomination) and Speed the Plow. Off-Broadway includes You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, The White House Murder Case, Marie and Bruce, Pavlo Hummel and Some Americans Abroad. Bob has appeared in nearly fifty movies, including Midnight Cowboy, Catch 22, Close Encounters, Altered States, 2010, Absence of Malice, Prince of the City, Deconstructing Harry, Jakob the Liar, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, The Mexican, Ghost World, Gosford Park, A Mighty Wind ,Marie and Bruce and just completed two films - Capote with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Bart Freundlich's new film Trust the Man with Julianne Moore and Billy Crudup. Bob produced and directed the hit Off-Broadway evening The Exonerated (Drama Desk Award, #1 play-New York Times, Outer Critics Circle Award) as well as the National Tour starring Robin Williams, Stockard Channing, Mia Farrow, etc. As a producer, Bob's credit's include Gosford Park (Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, British Academy Award, New York Critic's Award, SAG Award) and he produced, directed and wrote The Last Good Time starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Maureen Stapleton and Lionel Stander which won best director and best film at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Bob directed Parents starring Randy Quaid, Sandy Dennis and Marybeth Hurt and directed the pilot for the long running series "Tales From the Darkside." Last year produced, directed and starred in "Sex and the Suburbs, a pilot for Fox FX. Currently he is producing and directing a series for AMC and the IFC. He just completed directing the movie version of The Exonerated for Court TV starring Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn, and Brian Dennehy. He wrote a series of best-selling children's books for Scholastic called "McGrowl." He lives in Manhattan with his wife, writer, Lynn Grossman, and his children, Hazel and Mariah.

Larry Bryggman (Judge) comes directly from the acclaimed Broadway revival of Twelve Angry Men. Atlantic Theater Company Member. Broadway: Proof (Tony nomination), Picnic (Tony nomination), Twelve Angry Men, Prelude to a Kiss, Richard III, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Ulysses in Nighttown. Off-Broadway: Henry IV, Parts I and II, Coriolanus, Macbeth, etc. (NYSF/Public Theater and Delacorte Theater in Central Park); Frame 312, Hothouse and Once in a Lifetime (Atlantic Theater Company); Proof, New England (MTC); Prelude and Liebestod (MCC Theatre); A Bad Friend and Bodies, Rest and Motion (LCT); Roulette. Film: Spy Game, Die Hard With a Vengeance, And Justice for All, Looking for Richard, My Side of the Story. TV: "As the World Turns," "Law & Order," two Daytime Emmys for Best Actor.

Jim Frangione (Doctor). Broadway: The Old Neighborhood. Off-Broadway: Oleanna, as well as the National Tour. With Atlantic: The Night Heron, Hobson's Choice, Edmond and the workshop of Hellhound on My Trail. Regional: The Alley Theatre and ART, as well as five seasons with the Stage Company of Boston. TV: "Law & Order," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "New York Undercover," "Another World," and "All My Children." Film: Suits, The Last Days of May, Rubout, Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner, Maryam, State and Main and Heist.

Steven Goldstein (Defendant). Atlantic Company Member. Broadway: Our Town. Off-Broadway: The Water Engine, The Lights, Oh Hell, Boys' Life (Lincoln Center Theatre); Sweet Adeline (Encores!); Luck Pluck & Virtue, Shaker Heights, Nothing Sacred, Three Sisters and more (Atlantic Theater Company, founding member); Harmony (La Jolla Playhouse); Marathon Dancing (En Garde Arts). Opera: Monostatos in Die Zauberflote and The First Jew in Salome (Los Angeles Opera); Don Bastillo in Le Nozze de Figaro (Vancouver Opera and Cleveland Opera); Le Mari in Les Mamelles de Teresias, Pedrillo in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Sam in Street Scene and Little Bat in Susannah (Tel Aviv); Libby Larsen's Eric Hermannson's Soul with Opera Omaha. Film: The Untouchables, House of Games, Homicide, Things Change, The Spanish Prisoner. TV: "Law and Order," "The Guiding Light."

Steven Hawley (Bailiff). Atlantic Company Member. Steven graduated from Atlantic's Professional Actor Training Program in 1995. Currently he is the Managing Director of the Acting School where he also serves on the faculty. Steven has appeared in Richard Cory at Atlantic as well as numerous productions at Atlantic's 453 Space with fellow faculty members and alumni including Cheek to Cheek and The Three Sisters.

Keith Nobbs (Bernard) Broadway: The Lion in Winter (Roundabout). Off-Broadway: Fuddy Meers (MTC, Minetta Lane), Dublin Carol (Atlantic), Hope Is the Thing with Feathers (Drama Department), Four (MTC), Stupid Kids (WPA, Century Theatre). Workshops/labs: Four (Cherry Lane Alternative), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Sundance), Mean Creek (O'Neill Conference). Film: Phonebooth (Joel Schumacher), Double Whammy (Tom DiCillo). TV: "Law & Order," "The Sopranos," "New York Undercover." Graduate LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. Member Drama Dept. and The Vineyard Community of Artists.

Christopher Evan Welch (Defense Attorney). Broadway: The Crucible, London Assurance. Off-Broadway: Woody Allen's Writer's Block (Atlantic); Othello, Measure for Measure (Public); A Streetcar Named Desire (Obie Award, NYTW); A Skull in Connemara (Roundabout); Scapin (Encore Award, Roundabout); Come Clean (P.S. 122); Adam Baum and the Jew Movie (Blue Light). Regional: Steppenwolf, Long Wharf, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Guthrie, Seattle Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, ACT (Seattle) and more Film: Hamlet (Campbell Scott); Chinese Coffee (Al Pacino, dir.). Television: "Third Watch," "Law & Order: SVU," "The Practice," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

Neil Pepe (Director). Recent credits include the world premiere of Howard Korder's Sea of Tranquility and the American premieres of Jez Butterworth's The Night Heron and Joe Penhall 's Blue/Orange at Atlantic, Further Than the Furthest Thing by Zinnie Harris (Manhattan Theater Club's Stage One), Eric Bogosian's Red Angel (Williamstown Theatre Festival), David Mamet's American Buffalo starring William H. Macy (Donmar Warehouse, London and Atlantic), Tom Donaghy's The Beginning of August starring Mary Steenburgen (South Coast Rep., and Atlantic) and Jessica Goldberg's Refuge (Playwrights Horizons); Hilary Bell's Wolf Lullaby, Clean by Edwin Sanchez, Shaker Heights by Quincy Long, Five Very Live by David Ban Matre and Call of the Wile E. by Patrick Breen, all at Atlantic Theater Company. Neil has been the Artistic Director of Atlantic Theater Company since 1992.

ROMANCE will play Tuesday through Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 & 8 and Sundays at 3 & 7:30. All tickets are $55.00 and are available by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200 (Telecharge.com).

Atlantic Theater Company is located at 336 West 20th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues). For membership information, wheelchair seating, and/ or group sales call 212-691-5919, x 102.

Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Managing Director) is the award winning Off-Broadway theater dedicated to producing great plays simply and truthfully utilizing an artistic ensemble. Atlantic believes that the story of the play and the intent of the playwright are at the core of the creative process. Since it's inception in 1985, Atlantic has produced more than 90 plays including the Tony Award winning production of The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, the World premieres of Woody Allen's A Second Hand Memory and Writer's Block, the American premieres of Blue/Orange, Dublin Carol and The Night Heron, the New York premiere of The Cider House Rules, the revivals of American Buffalo and Edmond, Mojo, Minutes From The Blue Route and Hobson's Choice. Atlantic maintains an ensemble of acclaimed actors, writers and directors including co-founders David Mamet (playwright and director) and William H. Macy (Academy Award nominee for Fargo) among others.

www.atlantictheater.org