Second Stage Theatre to Premiere SEX LIVES OF OUR PARENTS and THE TALLS This Summer

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director) has announced the two world premiere plays which will be presented as part of the company's ninth annual Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series this summer: Michael Mitnick's Sex Lives of Our Parents, directed by Davis McCallum, and Anna Kerrigan's The Talls, directed by Carolyn Cantor.

Both plays will be presented at Second Stage Theatre's uptown home, the McGinn/Cazale Theatre on Broadway at 76th Street. Sex Lives of Our Parents will run June 7 - July 3. The Talls will run August 1 - August 27. Tickets for both shows can be purchased by calling the Second Stage Theatre Box Office at 212-246-4422 or online at www.2ST.com.

Created as a program to help develop and provide exposure for the voices of a new generation of theatre artists the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series (Christopher Burney, Associate Artistic Director and Curator), the series seeks to develop the skills of emerging playwrights, to provide early-career artists with the support of a major artistic institution, and to create new plays for the American Theatre. Each show has a limited rehearsal period, as well as a streamlined budget.

The series has helped launch and advance the careers of several up-and-coming playwrights, including Rajiv Joseph (Gruesome Playground Injuries and the upcoming Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), Leslye Headland (Bachelorette), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Good Boys and True, HBO's "Big Love"), Adam Bock (A Small Fire, The Drunken City), and Brooke Berman (Hunting and Gathering).

The series premiered in 2002 with three new American plays: ...in the absence of spring..., written and directed by Joe Calarco; The Notebook, written by Wendy Kesselman and directed by Evan Yionoulis; and Hunt Holman's Spanish Girl, directed by Erica Schmidt. Second Stage Theatre Uptown was on hiatus in 2003 due to theatre repairs. The 2004 season saw the New York premiere of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's The Mystery Plays, as well as Brooke Berman's The Triple Happiness, starring Ally Sheedy. In 2005, the series presented the New York premiere of the critically acclaimed comedy Swimming in the Shallows, written by Adam Bock and starring Logan Marshall-Green, as well as the world premiere of Dan O'Brien's The Dear Boy. The 2006 series featured two world premiere comedies: Getting Home, written by Anton Dudley and directed by David Schweizer, and Rajiv Joseph's All This Intimacy, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The 2007 series featured Marisa Wegrzyn's The Butcher of Baraboo, directed by Judith Ivey, and Joshua Tobiessen's Election Day, directed by Jeremy Dobrish. The 2008 series featured Carly Mensch's Len, Asleep in Vinyl, directed by Jackson Gay, and Rajiv Joseph's Animals Out of Paper, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The 2009 series presented two world premiere plays: Zakiyyah Alexander's 10 Things To Do Before I Die, directed by Jackson Gay, and Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower, directed by Giovanna Sardelli.

Last season's series featured the New York premiere of Michael Golamco's Year Zero, directed by Will Frears and the New York premiere production of Leslye Headland's critically acclaimed hit comedy Bachelorette, directed by Trip Cullman.

Sex Lives of Our Parents

World premiere
Written by Michael Mitnick
Directed by Davis McCallum
June 7 - July 3

Virginia is getting married. As her wedding day approaches, unwanted ghosts of her mother's past appear, unearthing a shocking past she never knew - nor wanted to. A provocative comic nightmare about the mysterious hollows between parents and children and things that may be better left unsaid.

Michael Mitnick is a playwright and songwriter. His plays and musicals have been developed around the country at theaters including Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, The McCarter, The Denver Center Theatre Company, TheatreWorks, The Lark, Studio 42, Washington Ensemble Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. He has an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn.

Davis McCallum recently directed the world premiere of Molly Smith Metzler's Elemeno Pea at the 2011 Humana Festival of New American Plays. New York: Sam Hunter's A Bright New Boise (Partial Comfort), Greg Moss's punkplay (Clubbed Thumb), Chuck Mee's Queens Boulevard (Signature Theater), Quiara Hudes' Elliot: A Soldier's Fugue (P73; Pulitzer Prize Finalist), and Henry V (Acting Company/New Victory). Regional: Guthrie, Old Globe, Ashland, the O'Neill, Williamstown, Playmakers Rep, New York Stage & Film, others. Other: NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors (2007).

The Talls

World premiere
Written by Anna Kerrigan
Directed by Carolyn Cantor
August 1 - August 27
The Clarke family is dealing with some very tall problems. Just ask 17-year-old Isabelle Clarke. Negotiating Catholicism, politics and virginity in the 1970's can make the tallest girl feel really small. A comic drama about coming of age when life's lessons come in all sizes.

Anna Kerrigan is a playwright, screenwriter, and director based in New York City. She most recently wrote and directed Five Days Gone, an independent feature film in post-production. A graduate of Stanford, Anna was invited to join the Ensemble Studio Theater's Youngblood Playwrights group in 2009. Her plays have been produced in New York and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival where she also assisted Alex Timbers.

Carolyn Cantor's New York directing credits include: After the Revolution (Playwrights Horizons), Pumpgirl (Manhattan Theatre Club), In A Dark Dark House (MCC Theater), Something You Did (Primary Stages), Essential Self Defense (Playwrights Horizons), Orange Flower Water (Time Out NY ten best of the year), Now That's What I Call A Storm, Living Room in Africa, Stone Cold Dead Serious (NY Times 10 best of the year) and Life is a Dream (Edge Theater), EVE-olution (Cherry Lane), and Kitty Kitty Kitty (SPF). Her regional credits include The Violet Hour (Old Globe), Rabbit Hole (Geffen Garland Award), Diary of Anne Frank (Papermill), Not Waving and King Stag (both Williamstown Theatre Festival), Vera Laughed and Get What You Need (both NYS&F), After Ashley and Finer Noble Gases (both Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference) and Nocturne (Ojai Playwrights Conference). Her film and television credits are The Green Room (Bravo) and Bravo Profiles: Roger Ebert. Carolyn has received the Garson Kanin-Marion Seldes Award from the American Theatre Wing, both the Boris Sagal and Bill Foeller Fellowships from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and a Drama League Directing Fellowship. She is the founding artistic director of the Obie Award winning Edge Theater and a graduate of Dartmouth College.

Sex Lives of Our Parents will be performed at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre (Broadway & 76th Street, 3rd floor) from Tuesday, June 7 - Sunday, July 3 on the following schedule: Tuesday-Saturday at 7:30pm, Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00pm, and Sunday at 3:00pm. There will be no matinee performance on June 8th and June 15th.

The Talls will be performed at the McGinn/Cazale Theater (Broadway & 76th Street, 3rd floor) from Monday, August 1 - Saturday, August 27 on the following schedule: Monday-Saturday at 7:30pm, and Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00pm. There will be no matinee performances on August 3 and August 10.

Tickets for performances of both plays can be purchased at the Second Stage Theatre Box Office (305 West 43rd Street) or by calling (212) 246-4422. Advance tickets are not available at the McGinn/Cazale Theater. Single tickets are $50; advance youth tickets (age 30 and under) are $20; and student RUSH tickets are $10 (available 30 minutes prior to curtain). A 2-play subscription is available for $60.

Founded in 1979 under the leadership of Artistic Director Carole Rothman, Second Stage Theatre produces a diverse range of premieres and new interpretations of America's best Contemporary Theatre, including Tiny Alice and Peter and Jerry by Edward Albee; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Little Murders by Jules Feiffer; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; A Soldier's Play by Charles Fuller; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo's Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Painting Churches and Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and On the Stem by Ricky Jay; next to normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; Living Out by Lisa Loomer; This Is Our Youth and The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan; Some Men by Terrence McNally; eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; Everyday Rapture by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Crowns by ReGina Taylor; Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein; Spoils of War by Michael Weller; Before It Hits Home, Jar the Floor and Birdie Blue by Cheryl L. West; Jitney by August Wilson; Lemon Sky, Serenading Louie and Sympathetic Magic by Lanford Wilson; and Metamorphoses and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci by Mary Zimmerman. 

The company's more than 130 citations include the 2010 Pulitzer prize for next to normal, the 2009 Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Orchestrations, and Best Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley) for next to normal, the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed), 2005 Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical (Rachel Sheinkin, ...Spelling Bee) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Dan Fogler, ...Spelling Bee), 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play (Mary Zimmerman for Metamorphoses), the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, 26 Obie Awards, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Clarence Derwent Awards, 12 Drama Desk Awards, nine Theatre World Awards, 11 Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Critics Circle Award and 15 AUDELCO Awards.

Second Stage Theatre has acquired the right to purchase the historic Helen Hayes Theatre, located at 240 W. 44th Street. With this new home, Second Stage will be the only theatre company on Broadway dedicated exclusively to the development and presentation of contemporary American theatrical productions. Second Stage will also become one of only four non-profit theatre companies that own and operate theatres on Broadway. The company will continue to lease and operate their original theatres on the city's Upper West Side and in Midtown Manhattan.

For more information, please visit www.2ST.com