American Repertory Theater Presents Three Pianos, Opens 12/7

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) continues its 2011-12 season with Three Pianos by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy, with music from Franz Schubert's Winterreise, Op. 89, D911 (1828), directed by Rachel Chavkin. The production opens on Wednesday, December 7 (press opening on Thursday, December 8 at 7pm) at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, and runs through January 8, 2012.

The OBIE winning hit music-theatre event that wowed audiences and critics alike in its sold-out runs at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and New York Theater Workshop - is a theatrical explosion of Franz Schubert's song cycle Winterreise. Filled with fantastical touches and inventive arrangements, Three Pianos is a colorful and imaginative evening of chaos, exploring Schubert's music, life, and times. Set on a blustery winter night, three friends - each manning a piano - lead the audience through fragments of Schubert's famous work while grappling with fundamental questions about the nature of music and drinking too much. The three pianists slip into a wild reenactment of a "Schubertiad," a musical salon party thrown by Schubert and his friends, connecting the two groups through the centuries. An evening of hilarity and heartbreak unfolds, in which the audience is invited to the party. Compositional mayhem, shifting rivalries, and some unfortunate butchery of the German language ensue.

About the Artists:
Writer, arranger, and performer Rick Burkhardt is an award?winning composer, songwriter, and playwright. His original chamber music, theatre, and text pieces have been performed by dozens of ensembles in over forty US cities, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a founding member of the Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music/theater trio, and the songwriter and accordionist for the Prince Myshkins, a political cabaret/folk duo whose songs have been performed and recorded by a wide variety of musicians across the US.

Writer, arranger, and performer Alec Duffy is a director and playwright, and founder of the theatre company Hoi Polloi. Recent original work includes The less we talk: a meditation on groupsinging, Dysphoria (Ontological Theater) and The Top Ten People of the Millennium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder, which premiered in New York and toured to Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. He was a Drama League Directing Fellow, and one of seven directors nationwide to be selected for the 2007? 09 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.
Writer, arranger, and performer Dave Malloy is also a composer and sound designer, the winner of a Special Citation OBIE Award and the 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant, a recipient of the 2009-11 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Designers, and the 2011 composer-in-residence at Ars Nova. He has written six full length musicals, including Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage (2011 Edinburgh Herald Angel, 2008 Glickman Award, New Yorker Best of 2009) with Banana Bag & Bodice, with whom he has been a company member since 2002. Other shows include Beardo, Sandwich, Clown Bible ("Best Play of the Year," "Best Music," East Bay Express 2007) and (The 99-cent) Miss Saigon, a shoe-string adaptation complete with a toy helicopter on a zip line, for which he was musical director, pianist and Chris. He is currently working on Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on Tolstoy's War & Peace. He lives in Brooklyn.

Director Rachel Chavkin is the Artistic Director of the award-winning ensemble the TEAM. With the TEAM, she has directed/co-authored seven works, including Mission Drift (co-produced by NY's Performance Space 122 and Lisbon's Culturgest, Winner of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe First, Herald Angel, and Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize), Particularly in the Heartland (2006 Fringe First, Top Ten 2007 Time Out New York), and Architecting (2008 Fringe First, Top Ten 2009 Portugal's Publico), produced by The National Theatre of Scotland. She has also collaborated with Three Pianos' Dave Malloy on his musical adaptation of Book 8 of Tolstoy's War and Peace (entitled Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812) at Ars Nova, playwright/performer/activist Taylor Mac on The Lily's Revenge at HERE (with whom she'll re-unite for The National Theatre of Scotland's production of Lily's, Summer 2012), playwright/composer Molly Rice and composer Stephanie Johnstone on The Agee/Evans Project about James Agee's and Walker Evans' seminal book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, playwright Steve Yockey on Wonder, and Keith Reddin on Acquainted With the Night. She serves on the directing faculty at Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and teaches Shakespeare at Pace University. Rachel is an Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company, for whom she has directed a number of readings/workshops and served as Mandy Patinkin's Shakespeare Coach, an alum of the Drama League Directors Project, the Women's Project Director's Lab, a New Georges Affiliate Artist, and an NYTW Usual Suspect.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is one of the country's most celebrated resident theaters and the winner of numerous awards - including the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize and regional Elliot Norton and I.R.N.E. Awards. In 2002 the A.R.T. was the recipient of The National Theatre Conference's Outstanding Achievement Award, and in May of 2003 it was named one of the top three regional theaters in the country by Time magazine. Founded by Robert Brustein in 1980, the A.R.T. during its 30-year history has performed throughout the U.S. and worldwide, and has welcomed many major American and international theater artists, presenting a diverse repertoire that includes new American plays, bold reinterpretations of classical texts and provocative new music Theater Productions. In 2009, the A.R.T. welcomed its new Artistic Director, Diane Paulus. Armed with the A.R.T.'s mission to expand the boundaries of theater, Paulus and her team have engaged thousands of new theatergoers at performances of Sleep No More, The Donkey Show, Gatz, Best of Both Worlds, Johnny Baseball, Cabaret, The Blue Flower, Prometheus Bound, and Death and the Powers as well as festivals like Emerging America. Critics and audiences have embraced the immersive environments that have become hallmarks of A.R.T. productions. The Theater has broadened its focus to include the audience's total experience, providing them with a sense of ownership in the theatrical event. Initiatives like the A.R.T.'s new club theater OBERON, which Paulus calls a "Second Stage for the 21st century," is an example of one initiative that has not only become an incubator for local artists but also has attracted national attention as a groundbreaking model for programming. Through all of its work, the A.R.T. is committed to building a community of artists, technicians, educators, staff and audience, all of who are integral to the A.R.T.'s core mission of expanding the boundaries of theater.

The balance of the A.R.T.'s 2011-12 Season includes AS YOU LIKE IT by William Shakespeare, featuring members of The A.R.T. /MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training Class of 2012 (Loeb Drama Center • January 13 - January 28); the world premiere of WILD SWANS by Jung Chang, adapted by Alexandra Wood, directed by Sacha Wares (Loeb Drama Center • February 11 - March 11); and the world premiere of FUTURITY: A Musical by The Lisps, with music and lyrics by César Alvarez with The Lisps; book by Molly Rice and César Alvarez; directed by Sarah Benson (Oberon • March 16 - April 15); and WOODY SEZ, with words and music by Woody Guthrie, devised by David M. Lutken with Nick Corley (Loeb Drama Center • May 5 - May 26).

In addition, the A.R.T. will present a special Holiday production for children and their families - THE SNOW QUEEN, Hans Christian Andersen's exuberant ode to childhood, in a stage adaptation by Tyler Monroe, directed by Allegra Libonati. (Loeb Drama Center • December 10 - December 31).

The Loeb Drama Center, located at 64 Brattle Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge, is accessible to persons with special needs and to those requiring wheelchair seating or first-floor restrooms. Deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons can also reach the theater by calling the toll-free N.E. Telephone Relay Center at 1-800-439-2370.
For further information call 617-547-8300 or visit http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org

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