Ethan Hawke to Direct and Star in Jonathan Marc Sherman's CLIVE at New Group in 2013!

Off-Broadway's The New Group has just announced its 2012-2013 season, featuring three world premiere productions. As the season launch in Fall 2012, Scott Elliott, Artistic Director of The New Group, directs Francine Volpe's The Good Mother, featuring Gretchen Mol. Jonathan Marc Sherman's new work Clive arrives in Winter 2013, directed by and featuring Ethan Hawke in the title role. Spring 2013 ushers in the premiere of a new musical at The New Group, Bunty Berman Presents..., by Ayub Khan Din (music, book, lyrics) and Paul Bogaev (music), directed by Scott Elliott.

All productions play at The New Group @ Theatre Row (The Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street). Subscriptions for The New Group 2012-2013 season available now.

Subscriptions & info: (212) 244-3380 x305. For more, please visit www.thenewgroup.org.

FALL 2012:
The Good Mother by Francine Volpe, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Gretchen Mol.
In this taut psychological thriller, Larissa is a single mother who can barely meet the mortgage on her house in Mount Vernon, NY. When a bizarre incident involving her 4-year-old daughter forces her to face someone from her past, her own questionable actions come back to haunt her. Gretchen Mol stars as Larissa in this suspenseful drama by Francine Volpe, in a world premiere production at The New Group. Additional casting TBA.

WINTER 2013:
Clive by Jonathan Marc Sherman, directed by and featuring Ethan Hawke in the title role.
Inspired by Bertolt Brecht's inflammatory play Baal, Clive tracks a dissipated songwriter in 1990s New York City from the hedonistic heights of seduction and consumption into an ecstasy of self-destruction. This production reunites Jonathan Marc Sherman and Ethan Hawke, who teamed previously at The New Group on Things We Want (written by Sherman, directed by Hawke, 2007 extended run). At once a celebration and a nightmare vision of life lived for pleasure, Clive boasts an eclectic selection of classic American songs performed live. Additional casting TBA.

SPRING 2013:
Bunty Berman Presents... by Ayub Khan Din (Book, Lyrics, Co-Composer) and Paul Bogaev (Co-Composer), directed by Scott Elliott.
Set in a failing 1950s Bollywood studio, with songs in the style of Hollywood's Golden Age, this sparkling and hilarious new musical is from Ayub Khan Din, author of The New Group hits East is East and Rafta, Rafta.... Movie producer Bunty Berman's studio has long been the toast of Bombay, but now Raj, his biggest star and best friend, is beginning to lose his lustre. When their new movie bombs, Bunty must navigate through divas, mobsters and ambitious tea-boys to keep his studio alive. Bunty Berman Presents... features book and lyrics by Ayub Khan Din, and music by Ayub Khan Din and Paul Bogaev. Casting TBA.

The New Group (Scott Elliott, Artistic Director; Geoff Rich, Executive Director) launched its 2011-2012 season with Thomas Bradshaw's Burning, followed by the extended run of Erika Sheffer's Russian Transport, both directed by Scott Elliott, and the current production of David Rabe's An Early History of Fire, directed by Jo Bonney (all world premiere productions). Last season, the company presented Tommy Nohilly's Blood From A Stone featuring Ethan Hawke (Obie winner), the revival of Wallace Shawn's Marie and Bruce starring Marisa Tomei and Frank Whaley, and One Arm by Tennessee Williams, adapted and directed by Moisés Kaufman. Other productions include A Lie of the Mind, The Kid, Groundswell, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Hurlyburly, Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years, Abigail's Party, Smelling a Rat, Goose-Pimples and Ecstasy, Wallace Shawn's The Fever and Aunt Dan and Lemon, Kenneth Lonergan's The Starry Messenger featuring Matthew Broderick and This is Our Youth, and Kevin Elyot's Mouth to Mouth and My Night With Reg. The New Group is a recipient of the 2004 Tony® Award for Best Musical (Avenue Q). The New Group and Artistic Director Scott Elliott were honored with a Special 2010-11 Drama Desk Award "for presenting contemporary new voices, and for uncompromisingly raw and powerful productions."

Paul Bogaev is a multi-award-winning music director, arranger, conductor and composer. Broadway/Musical Director: Tarzan, Bombay Dreams (Tony nomination), Sunset Boulevard, Aspects of Love, Chess, Les Miserables, Starlight Express, Cats, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Grammys for Aida, for which he produced and conducted the Tony-winning score, and as Executive Producer of the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning Chicago. Other films include Nine, Across the Universe, Dreamgirls, The Lion King, Tarzan, Mulan. Music director of ABC-TV film musicals Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Annie (Emmy) and South Pacific.

Scott Elliott is the founding Artistic Director of The New Group, where he has produced over 50 plays, 24 of which he directed, including the recent world premiere productions of Erika Sheffer's Russian Transport and Thomas Bradshaw's Burning and The Kid (Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical). He also directed Ayub Kahn Din's East is East and Rafta, Rafta… at The New Group.

Ethan Hawke: At The New Group: Blood From A Stone (OBIE Award) and Hurlyburly (Drama League Award) as an actor; and as a director, A Lie of the Mind (Drama Desk nomination) and Jonathan Marc Sherman's Things We Want. Broadway: The Coast of Utopia (Tony® nom.), Henry IV, The Seagull. Off-B'way: Sophistry, The Late Henry Moss, The Bridge Project (Drama Desk nom.). Films include: Training Day (Academy Award nom.) and Before Sunset (Academy Award nom. as a writer, Best Adapted Screenplay). Hawke directed the films Chelsea Walls, Straight to One (also wrote) and The Hottest State (also wrote & appeared). He has written two novels.

Ayub Khan Din: East is East (Royal Court Theatre, London; The New Group) which he adapted into a film. East is East honors: Evening Standard Best Film Award, Writers' Guild Award for Best New Writer and also Best West End Play and John Whiting Award Best Stage Play. Rafta, Rafta… (National Theatre, London; The New Group) won an Olivier Award in 2008. A film version is due for release in 2012. Last Dance at Dum Dum (Ambassadors Theatre), Notes on Falling Leaves (Royal Court) and All the Way Home (The Library Theatre, Manchester).

Jonathan Marc Sherman's plays include Things We Want (The New Group), Knickerbocker, Sophistry, Evolution, Sons & Fathers, Jesus on the Oil Tank, Serendipity & Serenity, Wonderful Time, Veins & Thumbtacks (the basis for the movie The Jimmy Show) and Women & Wallace (which he adapted for American Playhouse).

Francine Volpe: The Given (directed by Michael Imperioli at Studio Dante, finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Late Fragment (Studio Dante), Sweethearts (The New Company), Giftbox (stageFARM). Her work has been developed at A.C.T., Arena Stage, Naked Angels, Rattlestick Theater, Soho Rep. Graduate of the Juilliard School, teaches screenwriting and playwriting at Sarah Lawrence College, ESPA, Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles. Member of New Dramatists.