Stephen Spinella, Denis O'Hare Set for AN ILIAD at New York Theatre Workshop

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that the theatre's 2011-2012 subscriber season will include:

The Select-The Sun Also Rises, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, created by Elevator Repair Service, directed by John Collins; Food and Fadwa, written by Lameece Issaq, directed by Shana Gold; An Iliad, adapted from The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, written by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare, directed by Lisa Peterson; and a fourth production to be announced in the coming weeks.

The Select-The Sun Also Rises
Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway
Created by Elevator Repair Service
Directed by John Collins

Last fall Elevator Repair Service electrified audiences with the triumphant Gatz, based on F. Scott Fitzgeralds's The Great Gatsby,?and their interpretation of The Sound and the Fury received critical acclaim when it debuted at NYTW in 2008. The 2011-2012 Season begins with ERS's final chapter in their trilogy of classic American literature. The Select-The Sun Also Rises presents a fresh take on Ernest Hemingway's tale of young ex-patriots living in Europe after World War I as journalist Jake Barnes, his former lover Lady Brett Ashley, and the writer Robert Cohn cope with post-war realities and enter the "age of anxiety."

Food and Fadwa
Written by Lameece Issaq
Directed by Shana Gold
Conceived and developed with Jacob Kader
A Co-Production with NOOR?Theatre

Meet Fadwa Faranesh, an unmarried, 30-something, Palestinian woman known for her delectable cooking and deep-seated sense of duty to her siblings and aging father. Despite the constraints of a curfew imposed on the community of East Bethlehem in 2002, our kitchen maven insists on continuing the preparations for the wedding of her younger sister. Politics blend with family tensions to create a sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking meal. Written by Lameece Issaq, directed by Shana Gold, and conceived and developed with Jacob Kader, this new play melds the fight a Palestinian family wages to hold onto its traditional culture with its need to celebrate love, joy and hope. NYTW teams up with company-in-residence Noor Theatre.

An Iliad
Adapted from The Iliad by Homer
Translated by Robert Fagles
Written by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare
Featuring Denis O'Hare and Stephen Spinella
Directed by Lisa Peterson

Creators Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare have crafted a sprawling yarn based on Homer's epic poem. An Iliad spins the tale of gods and goddesses, undying love, and endless battles told through an original, contemporary, and immediate voice. Tony Award-winning actors Denis O'Hare (Assassins, Take Me Out) and Stephen Spinella (Angels in America) alternate in this sweeping account of humanity's unshakeable attraction to violence, destruction, and chaos. Has anything really changed since the Trojan War?

The final production of New York Theatre Workshop's critically acclaimed 2010-11 season, which included The Little Foxes, Three Pianos, and Peter and the Starcatcher, is The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, which begins performances May 12, 2011.

New York Theatre Workshop, now celebrating its 28th season, is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents three to five new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 45,000 audience members. Over the past 28 years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, and Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number, and Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For more information about New York Theatre Workshop, please visit www.nytw.org.

 

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos

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