Long Wharf Theatre Announces Upcoming Plays: Steve Martin's THE UNDERPANTS, FENCES and More

Long Wharf Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, announces the slate of plays for its 49th season.

Subscriptions are currently on sale. Single tickets for the 2013-14 Season will go on sale Thursday, August 1.

"We've assembled a wide range of engaging, enlightening, and exhilaration opportunities for people to have a great night out at the theatre. It's a season about laughter, love, family, work and disappointment - in short, stories about human beings connecting," Edelstein said. "We want to remind people that what they get through the live experience they can't get anywhere else."

The season will begin with a farce, The Underpants, by Steve Martin, directed by Edelstein. Martin's play is based on Carl Sternheim's play Die Hose, which was banned in Germany in 1911 for its risqué content. Martin brings his own uniquely comic sensibility to the work, Edelstein said. "The Underpants is a wild sex farce, a look at old fashioned male attitudes towards women. It is done with a satiric edge that is right from the mind of Steve Martin - a sense of humor that is really smart and really silly. That's what makes Steve Martin unique," Edelstein said.

Phylicia Rashad will make her Long Wharf Theatre directorial debut with Fences, the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic by August Wilson. "I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather to bear witness," Wilson said in a Paris Review interview. "It is a nostalgia piece looking at a moment when African Americans were breaking into sports. The play is, in some ways, about frustrated ambitions, talented black athletes who realized that it is too late for them. Troy Maxton realized what he could have been instead of what he was. I think audiences will be extremely moved by his story," Edelstein said.

Heidi Schreck, known for her brilliant career as both an actor and a playwright, will debut her newest work, The Consultant, on Stage II in January. The Consultant deals with the financial meltdown, the absurd world of the modern workplace and the unlikely relationships formed there. Kip Fagan, who recently directed Jesse Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave in The Revisionist at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, will direct. "Schreck, also an Obie-winning actress, has a gift for writing layered characters," said Backstage. Edelstein places The Consultant in the theatre's grand lineage of workplace plays - pieces like The Adding Machine,How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and The Front Page. "It is a fresh new comedy-drama about the contemporary corporate culture of consultants middle management and office paranoia. Schreck's play is irreverent, a little kooky and very humane," Edelstein said.

Amy Herzog, author of 4000 Miles, playing the Mainstage in late February, is being lauded as one of the important new voices in the American theatre. The play"...is a very honest look at the unsteady relationship between a grandmother and grandson who are worlds apart generationally. . I think our audiences will recognize themselves and laugh a lot. They'll be completely engaged in this relationship," Edelstein said. Critics have raved about the play. "Plays as truthful and touching and fine as 4000 Miles come along once or maybe twice a season," said Charles Isherwood in the New York Times. "This is the rare theatrical production that achieves perfection on its own terms."

Athol Fugard makes his first appearance on stage in over a decade in the world premiere of his most recent work The Shadow of the Hummingbird. This sensitive portrayal of an 80-year-old man giving advice to his young grandson will take place on Stage II in April. "This is a great work by a late master about living and dying, and how to live one's life" Edelstein said. "It is written by and starring one of the most important voices in the world theatre in the last fifty years. We are honored that Athol has chosen to give us his newest play."

The season will conclude with the much beloved musical The Last Five Years, taking place in May on the Mainstage. "The Last Five Years is a beautiful and heartbreaking romance from Jason Robert Brown, one of Broadway's most gifted young composers. It is a brilliantly moving portrait of a marriage with gorgeous music and hilarious lyrics. I think this love story strikes a chord with people of all ages," Edelstein said.

For more information about the 2013-14 season, or to purchase tickets, visit www.longwharf.org or call 203-787-4282.

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