Felicity Jones, Emily Walton and More to Star in Yale Rep's THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS; Cast Announced!

Yale Repertory Theatre presents THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS by Meg Miroshnik, directed by Rachel Chavkin, January 31-February 22 at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, February 6.

The cast of THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS is Sofiya Akilova, Celeste Arias, Stéphanie Hayes, Jessica Jelliffe, Felicity Jones, and Emily Walton.

The production includes scenic design by Christopher Ash; costumes by KJ Kim; lighting by Bradley King; sound design, music direction, and original music by Chad Raines; vocal and dialect coaching by Jane Guyer Fujita; dramaturgy by Amy Boratko; and stage management by Hannah Sullivan.

ABOUT THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS: Once upon a time-in 2005-a twenty-year-old girl named Annie returned to her native Russia to brush up on the language and lose her American accent. Underneath a glamorous Post-Soviet Moscow studded with dangerously high heels, designer bags, and luxe fur coats, she discovers an enchanted motherland teeming with evil stepmothers, wicked witches, and ravenous bears. Annie must learn how to become the heroine of a story more mysterious and treacherous than any childhood fairytale: her own.

A finalist for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls marks the Yale Rep debuts of Whiting Writers' Award winning playwright Meg Miroshnik and two-time OBIE Award winning director Rachel Chavkin, who recently staged the celebrated musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 in New York.

THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS contains strong language and adult content. Please contact the Box Office at (203) 432-1234 if you have questions about the themes or content of this production.

Tickets for THE FAIRYTALE LIVES OF RUSSIAN GIRLS range from $20-98 and are available online at yalerep.org, by phone at (203) 432-1234, and in person at the Yale Rep Box Office (1120 Chapel Street, at York Street). Student, senior, and group rates are also available.

PERFORMANCES:

Friday, January 31 8PM

Saturday, February 1 8PM

Monday, February 3 8PM ALL TICKETS $20

Tuesday, February 4 8PM ALL TICKETS $20

Wednesday, February 5 8PM ALL TICKETS $20

Thursday, February 6 8PM

Friday, February 7 8PM Opening Night

Saturday, February 8 2PM Talk Back

Saturday, February 8 8PM

Tuesday, February 11 8PM

Wednesday, February 12 2PM Senior Reception - 1PM

Wednesday, February 12 8PM

Thursday, February 13 8PM

Friday, February 14 8PM

Saturday, February 15 2PM Open Captioning, Talk Back

Saturday, February 15 8PM

Tuesday, February 18 8PM

Wednesday, February 19 8PM

Thursday, February 20 8PM

Friday, February 21 8PM

Saturday, February 22 2PM Audio Description

Saturday, February 22 8PM

Talk Backs: Moderated Q&As with members of the company immediately following the performance.

Senior Reception: A dessert reception and presentation by members of the creative team prior to the Wednesday matinee performance.

Open Captioning: A digital display of the play's dialogue as it is spoken.

Audio Description: A live narration, via headset, of the play's action, sets, and costumes.

ABOUT THE CAST:

SOFIYA AKILOVA (MASHA) is making her Yale Rep debut. She recently received her MFA from the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program, where some of her favorite credits include The Cherry Orchard, Arms and the Man, Restoration, All's Well That Ends Well, and All My Sons. Her film and television credits include Listen Up Philip, directed by Alex Ross Perry, and Alpha House, directed by Michael Mayer.

CELESTE ARIAS (KATYA) is a second-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where she has performed in The Visit and Sagittarius Ponderosa. Other credits include Tartuffe, Miss Julie, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, Heart's Desire (Yale Cabaret); Three Seagulls, or MASHAMASHAMASHA! (HERE, Theater Reconstruction Ensemble); Demon Dreams (Magic Futurebox, NYIT Award Best Featured Actress, 2012); and Motherfucker with a Social Life (Old Vic/New Voices, London). Celeste holds a BFA from New York University.

STÉPHANIE HAYES (OTHER KATYA, NASTYA) Originally from Sweden and the UK, Stéphanie is making her Yale Rep debut. Her theatre credits include Richard Foreman's Old-Fashioned Prostitutes (A True Romance) at The Public Theater and February House at The Public and Long Wharf Theatre. She is a graduate of Yale School of Drama, where she appeared in The Seagull, Eurydice, Much Ado About Nothing, Homebody/Kabul, and Orestes. Stéphanie is also a writer and is currently working on a new play about inebriation. She is an associate member in the Vancouver-based Tigermilk Collective. stephanie.hayes.se

Jessica Jelliffe (OLGA, PASSPORT CONTROL OFFICER, PROFESSOR, VALENTINA) is Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director of Banana Bag & Bodice, a theatre collective based in NYC. She has collaborated on and performed in each of their shows since 1999, including The Sewers (Ontological-Hysteric Theater), The Fall & Rise of The Rising Fallen (PS122), A Very Sandwich Christmas (Abrons Arts Center), and Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, which received its world premiere with The Shotgun Players in Berkeley, California, and has toured nationally and internationally (American Repertory Theater, SummerStage NYC, Les Escales Improbables du Montreal, the Kilkenny Arts Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Adelaide Festival, Mayfest Bristol, and the Brighton Festival). Additional stage credits in New York include Botch (Joe Diebes); Shadows (Hoi Polloi); Oh What War, As You Like It (Restless Productions); and History of the World Pt IV (GAle GAtes et al), as well as Gogol: a clown-opera (Exit Theater, San Francisco). Film credits: Stingray Sam (BNS Productions) and Made Up Language (Zbigniew Bzymek, director).

Felicity Jones (YAROSLAVA, BABA YAGA) previously appeared at Yale Rep in Hamlet, American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, The Winter's Tale, The Master Builder, A Woman of No Importance, Lulu, and The Ladies of the Camellias. Her New York stage credits include the Broadway production of Metamorphoses, and Off-Broadway: The Captain's Tiger (Manhattan Theatre Club), Measure for Measure (The Public Theater), and As You Like It (The Acting Company). Regional credits include The Homecoming, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Lady Windemere's Fan (CENTERSTAGE); The Diary of Anne Frank (Westport Country Playhouse); Enrico IV (American Conservatory Theater); The Odyssey (Goodman Theatre); and Cymbeline (Hartford Stage, McCarter Theatre). She is an associate with Lattawork Productions, performing her one-woman school show Me Pluribus Unum. She was an Associate Artist for ten years at Theatre de la Jeune Lune, where she co-wrote and performed in such works as Crusoe, Friday and the Island of Hope, The Green Bird, and Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream (the last two also seen here at Yale Rep). Film and television credits include Julie & Julia, Wonderland, Deadline, Ed, and Law & Order.

Emily Walton (ANNIE) is very excited to be making her Yale Rep debut. In New York, she has been in the Broadway companies of Peter and the Starcatcher and August: Osage County. Her other New York credits include Eager to Lose, A Farce in Rhyming Verse (Ars Nova); The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, Saved (Playwrights Horizons); Cactus Flower (West Side Theatre); and The Deepest Play Ever: The Catharsis of Pathos (New Ohio Theatre). Regional credits include The Wizard of Oz (Sacramento Music Circus), Sondheim on Sondheim (Great Lakes Theater Festival), and The Graduate (Cape Playhouse). Emily is also a singer-songwriter and has performed her music at various venues in Manhattan.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM:

Meg Miroshnik (PLAYWRIGHT) Plays include The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist, 2012; Alliance/Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award, 2011-12), The Droll {A Stage-Play about the END of Theatre}, The Tall Girls (ALLIANCE THEATRE, directed by Susan V. Booth, March 2014), and an adaptation of the libretto for Shostakovich's Moscow, Cheryomushki. Her work has been developed or produced by La Jolla Playhouse, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Center Theatre Group, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, South Coast Repertory, the Sallie B. Goodman Fellowship at the McCarter Theatre Center, ALLIANCE THEATRE, the Wilma Theater, the Kennedy Center, Lark New Play Development Center, Chicago Opera Theater, the Moscow Playwright and Director Center, Washington Ensemble Theatre, Yale Cabaret, Perishable Theatre, WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, and One Coast Collaboration, and published in Best American Short Plays, 2008-2009 (Applause, 2010). She holds commissions from South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Yale Rep. Originally from Minneapolis, she currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a member of the Playwrights Union. A graduate of Yale School of Drama, she is a recipient of the 2012 Whiting Writers' Award.

Rachel Chavkin (DIRECTOR) is a two-time OBIE Award winning and Drama Desk nominated director and founding Artistic Director of the Brooklyn-based devising ensemble The TEAM (theteamplays.org). Credits include Dave Malloy's electro-pop opera Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Ars Nova, world premiere; Kazino, commercial transfer); The TEAM's RoosevElvis, named one of 2013's Top Ten by Time Out New York (Bushwick Starr); Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife (Playwrights Realm); The TEAM's Mission Drift (co-produced by PS 122, Lisbon's Culturgest, and London's Almeida Theatre), with music by Heather Christian, most recently seen at London's National Theatre; Three Pianos by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy (New York Theatre Workshop, American Repertory Theater, Incubator Arts Project); and the world premiere of Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge (Act II) at HERE Arts Center. Rachel is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect; an Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company; an Artistic Associate at London's Gate Theatre; an alumnus of Soho Rep's Writer/Director Lab, the Drama League Directors Project, and the Women's Project Director's Lab; and a New Georges Affiliate Artist. She is a graduate of New York University (BFA) and Columbia University (MFA).

Christopher Ash (SCENIC DESIGNER) is an international designer of scenery, lighting, and projections for theatre, dance, opera, and film. He has received awards and nominations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and international arenas. Recent projects include projections for La Traviata (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep); lighting for Heidi Latsky Dance's One Hour: Two Works and GiMP, Anadolu Ate?i's international tour of Troia, and several pieces for River North Chicago and Hubbard Street 2 dance companies; and production and lighting design for Amanda Palmer's music video Bedsong. He is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where he has designed lighting for Platonov and sets for Lottie in the Late Afternoon and Iphigenia Among the Stars. For the Yale Cabaret he has designed sets, lights, and projection for We Know Edie La Minx Had a Gun; sets for Christie in Love and Chamber Music; lighting and projections for The Yiddish King Lear and Rey Planta; and is the publicity photographer for the current season. He was the assistant scenic designer for Belleville (Yale Rep) and has been a regular associate designer to scenic designer Riccardo Hernandez. To see more of his work, please visit ChristopherAsh.com.

KJ KIM (COSTUME DESIGNER) is a third-year year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include Romeo and Juliet and Iphigenia Among the Stars. Her Yale Cabaret credits include Cat Club and Dutchman. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she graduated from the University of Evansville with a BA in costume design. In January 2011, she received the USITT Young Designers and Technicians Award in Makeup Design and placed first in Alcone Company's Makeup Design Award for Region III. In April 2011, she went to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, as one of eight national finalists in her field, making it her second year advancing to a national competition. artekj.com

Bradley King (LIGHTING DESIGNER) Previously with director Rachel Chavkin: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Kazino, Ars Nova) and Uncle Vanya (Classic Stage Company). Other recent New York theatre credits include Women or Nothing (Atlantic Theater Company), Be a Good Little Widow (Wild Project), Dunkfest '88 (Ars Nova), Lawnpeople (Cherry Lane), Dukus (Target Margin Theater), Ninth and Joanie (LAByrinth Theater Company), Children (The Actors Company Theatre). Regional credits include productions at Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Penobscot Theatre, Virginia Stage, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. Opera credits include Bard Summerscape, Boston Early Music Festival, Kentucky Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Omaha, Vancouver Opera, and Virginia Opera. bradleykingld.com

Chad Raines (SOUND DESIGNER, MUSIC DIRECTOR, ORIGINAL MUSIC) Composition/sound design credits include The Bakkhai directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz at Bard College; Arabian Nights directed by Jesse Jou at Fairfield University; From White Plains written and directed by Michael Perlman at Pershing Square Signature Center (GLAAD Outstanding New York Theater Award: Off-Off Broadway); and Suicide, Incorporated directed by Jonathan Berry at Roundabout Underground. His previous Yale Rep credits include RoBert Woodruff's productions of Battle of Black and Dogs, for which he received the 2010 Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Sound Design, and Autumn Sonata. He is a graduate of Yale School of Drama, where he was awarded the Frieda Shaw, Dr. Diana Mason OBE, and Denise Suttor Prize for Sound Design. Chad spent most of 2012 and 2013 touring with Amanda Palmer on guitar and synthesizer. He is also frontman for The Simple Pleasure.

JANE GUYER FUJITA (VOCAL AND DIALECT COACH) is a lecturer in acting at Yale School of Drama. Her coaching credits include A Streetcar Named Desire, Marie Antoinette, Good Goods, Bossa Nova, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle at Yale Rep, as well as productions at American Repertory Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Primary Stages, The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival, Signature Theatre, Actor's Shakespeare Project, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, ABC Family, and HallMark Hall of Fame. Jane received her MFA in voice and speech pedagogy from the American Repertory Theater Institute at Harvard University and is an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework.

Rick Sordelet (FIGHT DIRECTOR) Broadway: over fifty productions, including Disney's The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and Aida. More than fifty productions all over the world, including Cyrano de Bergerac starring Placido Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House, and La Scala in Milan. Stunt coordinator for the films The Game Plan starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche, and Hamlet starring Campbell Scott. He served as the chief stunt coordinator for Guiding Light. Rick sits on the board of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and is a company member of Drama Dept. He teaches at Yale School of Drama, The New School for Drama, and The Neighborhood Playhouse; and he is the author of the play Buried Treasure. Rick is a proud recipient of the Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation. He is married to actress Kathleen Kelly and has three children: Kaelan, Christian, and Collin.

AMY BORATKO (PRODUCTION DRAMATURG) is the Literary Manager at Yale Rep and has previously served as dramaturg on the Yale Rep productions of Dear Elizabeth, The Realistic Joneses, Good Goods, Belleville, Autumn Sonata, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Battle of Black and Dogs, Compulsion, Notes from Underground, A Woman of No Importance, Eurydice, and The Cherry Orchard. Other dramaturgy credits include The Time of Your Life, The Summer People, Romeo and Juliet, The War Is Over (Yale School of Drama), as well as Voice and Vision's ENVISION Retreat at Bard College. She has been a teaching fellow at Yale College and Yale School of Drama and was a managing editor of Theater magazine. A graduate of Rice University, she received her MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Yale School of Drama.

HANNAH SULLIVAN (STAGE MANAGER) returns to Yale Rep, where she served as the assistant stage manager for Hamlet last season. Hannah is a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include Sunday in the Park with George, Petty Harbour, A Duck on a Bike, and Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika. Hannah has also worked with Cirque du Soleil, Arena Stage, The Muny, Yale Cabaret, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, HotCity Theatre, the New Harmony Project, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Barenaked Ladies Touring, and most recently on the new Broadway musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Training: University of Evansville.

ABOUT Yale Repertory Theatre: Yale Repertory Theatre has produced well over 100 premieres-including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists-by emerging and established playwrights. Eleven Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award nominations and eight Tony Awards. Yale Rep is also the recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Professional assignments at Yale Repertory Theatre are integral components of the program at Yale School of Drama, the nation's leading graduate theatre training conservatory.

Established in 2008, Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre is an artist-driven initiative that devotes major resources to the commissioning, development, and production of new plays and musicals at Yale Repertory Theatre and across the country. To date, the Binger Center has supported the work of more than 40 commissioned artists as well as the world premieres and subsequent productions of 15 new American plays and musicals, including this season's The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls by Meg Miroshnik; the Yale Rep-commissioned These Papers Bullets, adapted by Rolin Jones from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, with songs by Billie Joe Armstrong; and Marcus Gardley's The House that will not Stand.

Other Binger Center-supported productions include the world premiere of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, adapted by Bill Camp and RoBert Woodruff, commissioned and produced by Yale Rep, and its subsequent west coast and NY premieres by La Jolla Playhouse and Theatre for a New Audience; the world premiere co-production of Rinne Groff's Compulsion at Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, and The Public Theater; the world premiere of the Yale-commissioned On the Levee by Marcus Gardley, Todd Almond, and Lear deBessonet at Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3; the world premiere of Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs's musical POP! at Yale Rep, as well as its productions at City Theatre in Pittsburgh and Virginia's Firehouse Theatre Project; the world premiere of Amy Herzog's Belleville at Yale Rep and its subsequent New York Theatre Workshop production; the world premiere of The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno at Yale Rep; and the world premiere co-production of David Adjmi's Yale-commissioned Marie Antoinette at the American Repertory Theater and Yale Rep and its NY premiere at Soho Rep. Belleville and The Realistic Joneses, both Yale Rep commissions, were cited among the Top Ten of 2011 and 2012, respectively, by the New York Times. Will Eno's The Realistic Joneses will premiere on Broadway in the spring of 2014.

For more information about the Binger Center for New Theatre, visit yalerep.org/center.