Lincoln Center Theater to Present Richard Nelson's NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS in 2013

Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of André Bishop, Artistic Director, and Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) has announced that it will produce the world premiere of NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS, a new play by Richard Nelson, in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater this spring. The play, which was commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater, will be directed by David Cromer and will begin performances on Thursday, April 4. Opening night is Monday, May 6.

It’s 1948 and during a spring weekend in Westport, CT. a close-knit group of Russian emigres, including choreographer George Balanchine, composer Igor Stravinsky, conductor Serge Koussevitsky, painter/set designer Sergey Sudeikin and composer Nikolai Nabokov, gather to eat, drink and talk. In NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS playwright Richard Nelson reimagines, during the course of this weekend, the creation of Balanchine and Stravinsky’s historic collaboration, the ballet Orpheus, and explores the interesting and controversial ways American art was funded at the outset of the Cold War.

The cast and design team for NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS will be announced at a later date.

Richard Nelson’s plays include Some Americans Abroad and Two Shakespearean Actors (both plays produced by Lincoln Center Theater, the latter receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Play), The General From America, Franny’s Way, Madame Melville, Goodnight Children Everywhere, New England, Life Sentences, Principia Scriptoriae, The Vienna Notes and Conjuring An Event. He wrote the book and lyrics and directed the musical My Life with Albertine, wrote the book for the musical Chess, and wrote the book, conceived and adapted the lyrics and directed the musical The Dead, winning a Tony Award for his book.

David Cromer directed LCT’s production of When the Rain Stops Falling, for which he won a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Direction. His other credits include the recent Broadway productions of The House of Blue Leaves and Brighton Beach Memoirs. Off-Broadway credits include, Our Town, Adding Machine, the musical (Lortel and Obie Awards for Best Direction for both) and Orson’s Shadow and the current critically acclaimed Tribes at the Barrow Street Theater.

This fall Lincoln Center Theater is presenting, in addition to the on-going run of the Tony Award-winning Best Play War Horse in the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the 75th Anniversary production of Golden Boy by Clifford Odets, directed by Bartlett Sher, beginning Thursday, November 8 on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, Christopher Durang’s new play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by Nicholas Martin, beginning Thursday, October 25 in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and the LCT3 production of Ayad Ahktar’s Disgraced, directed by Kimberly Senior, beginning Sunday, October 7 at the Claire Tow Theater.