Special Preview of Suzanne Vega and Duncan Sheik's New Musical Added to 2017 Alley All New Festival

The Alley Theatre announces an added Late Night Preview featuring excerpts from the new musical Lover, Beloved: An Evening with Carson McCullers by Suzanne Vega and Duncan Sheik. The special 50-minute presentation is part of the previously announced lineup of readings and workshop performances, all taking place February 2-12 at the Alley All New Festival. Advance reservations are recommended and can be made now at alleytheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at 713-220-5700. All workshop performances and readings are free and open to the public.

The Alley welcomes back Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega with her new musical in progress, Lover, Beloved, which was presented at the Alley in August as a workshop performance. The presentation includes a discussion between Suzanne Vega and Alley Artistic Director Gregory Boyd and excerpts from the musical Lover, Beloved, which pays homage to renowned Southern writer Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding) who became one of the brightest literary lights of the 20th century. Duncan Sheik (Tony Award for Spring Awakening) co-authored songs for the piece.

2017 festival readings and workshop performances include Tony Award-nominated playwright Robert Askins and his new play The Carpenter, a full force new farce about a Texas couple's journey to the altar; House of Cards writer Kenneth Lin's stage adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph's Describe the Night, a story centered on real-life writer Isaac Babel; Christina Gorman and her Alley debut Roan @ The Gates, a topical and thought-provoking play about a relationship that intersects with national security; and NBC's This is Us co-producer Bekah Brunstetter and her play The Cake, which follows a same-sex couple as they navigate wedding planning.

Additionally, playwright and performer NSangou Njikam returns to the theatre and Alley All New Festival with the World Premiere production of Syncing Ink, which audiences will remember from the inaugural festival in 2016. A piece of Hip-Hop Theatre, Syncing Ink will be directed by Flea Theater Artistic Director Niegel Smith. The play centers on high school student Gordon and his journey to learn how to rhyme - which not only takes him deeper into Hip-Hop, but deeper into his legacy and his purpose. Festival attendees will receive a special discounted price for Syncing Ink.

The festival is one component of Alley All New, a major new work initiative that expands the Alley's commitment to playwrights and to produce more world premieres. The theatre has a strong history of world premieres including Fool by Theresa Rebeck, Intelligence-Slave by Kenneth Lin, Gruesome Playground Injuries and The Monster at the Door by Rajiv Joseph and Ether Dome by Elizabeth Egloff.

The first annual Alley All New Festival was held January 28 - February 7, 2016 and included 24 actors, eight writers and six directors, who presented 20 performances of six new plays. More than 700 festival attendees filled the newly renovated building. In addition to the Houston audiences, the Alley welcomed both regional and out-of-state industry guests.

All updates and schedules are available at alleytheatre.org/allnew. The full creative teams and casting will be announced in 2017.

FULL FESTIVAL CALENDAR

RESERVATIONS

Alley All New Festival presentations, workshop performances and readings are free and open to the public. Advance reservations are recommended and will be available now at alleytheatre.org/allnew, by phone at 713-220-5700 or in person at the Alley Theatre Box Office, 615 Texas Avenue.

WEEKEND PACKAGES
A Weekend Package for February 10-12, 2017, includes reserved seating at all presentations, exclusive artist access and meals between performances. Packages are $210 and are on sale now at alleytheatre.org/allnew, by phone at 713-220-5700 or in person at the Alley Theatre Box Office, 615 Texas Avenue.

2017 ALLEY ALL NEW FESTIVAL

LATE NIGHT PREVIEW

Lover, Beloved: An Evening With Carson McCullers by Suzanne Vega
Songs by Suzanne Vega and Duncan Sheik
Event Date: February 11 (10:30 p.m.)

Join us for excerpts from a new musical in development at the Alley Theatre.

Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega pays homage to renowned Southern writer Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding ) in this new musical about the outspoken, perceptive and wild dreamer who became one of the brightest literary lights of the 20th century. The piece, with songs co-authored by Duncan Sheik (Tony Award for Spring Awakening), richly captures McCullers' instinctively rebellious nature and forward-thinking philosophies on race, gender and love.

WORKSHOP PERFORMANCES

The Carpenter by Robert Askins
Directed by James Black
Workshop Performances: February 2 &12 (7:30 p.m.); February 4, 10 & 11 (8:00 p.m.)

Dan is a self-made man from blue collar Houston while his fiancé is from Dallas-Highland Park, to be exact-so she's got that money. As they arrive at her father's palatial mansion for their wedding, Dan starts to get cold feet. His college buddies are trying to get him drunk, his future father-in-law keeps shooting his rifle into the ceiling and his sassy sister can't put the pill bottle down. When the carpenter shows up to build the wedding gazebo, looking suspiciously like Dan, all hell breaks loose. There are mistaken identities. Family secrets. Accidental partner swaps and laughs. So many laughs. A full force new farce by the author of Hand To God.

Roan @ The Gates by Christina Gorman
Directed by Brandon Weinbrenner
Workshop Performances: February 4, 5, 11 & 12 (2:30 p.m.); February 10 (4:30 p.m.)

Would you buy a sofa without consulting your partner? How about a car? Change your job? Could you commit a crime and say nothing? And could you still love your partner if she followed her conscience but kept you in the dark? Nat is an outspoken civil rights attorney. Roan, the quiet one, is an NSA Analyst who isn't even allowed to tell her wife the location of her next business trip. In this topical and thought-provoking new play, a long-time couple confronts questions about their marriage they never thought to ask as their personal relationship collides with national security.

READINGS

The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter
Readings: February 11 (4:00 p.m.); February 12 (2:30 p.m.)

Jen lives in New York but has always dreamed of getting married in her native North Carolina. With the wedding six months away, she heads down South to ask Della, her late mother's best friend who owns a bakery there, to do the honors of making her wedding cake. Della's cakes are the best-she's going to compete on the Great American Baking show, nobigdeal. Della is overjoyed to make Jen's cake-until she realizes that there isn't just one bride, but two. She can't really bake a cake for such a wedding, can she? Moral quandaries, reality TV and loads and loads of butter form this play about two women trying to reach out across a divide that just keeps growing.

Describe the Night by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Giovanna Sardelli
Readings: February 11 (10:00 a.m.),

In 1920, the Russian writer Isaac Babel wanders the Polish countryside with the Red Cavalry. Seventy years later, a mysterious KGB agent spies on a woman in Dresden and falls in love. In 2010, an aircraft carrying most of the Polish government crashes in the Russian city of Smolensk. Rajiv Joseph (Gruesome Playground Injuries, The Monster at the Door) returns to the Alley with his epic new play Describe the Night which traces the stories of men and women connected by history, myth and conspiracy theories. Alley Theatre Commission.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Kenneth Lin
Adapted from the novel by Mark Twain
Directed by Gregory Boyd
Readings: February 10 & 12 (10:00 a.m.)

Kenneth Lin (Intelligence-Slave, Warrior Class) returns to the Alley with a new adaptation of Mark Twain's great American novel about the travels of Huck Finn, an adventure-loving boy and his unlikely companion Jim, an escaped slave who dreams of buying his family. As the pair travels by raft along the Mississippi River they encounter rapids in the fog, an epic family feud, and a conman who just might be the King of France. Lin (a writer on House of Cards ) re-imagines Twain's original story, keeping the wild situations and larger-than-life characters you remember but focusing his lens on the relationship between Huck and his father Pap. Alley Theatre Commission.

WORLD PREMIERE PRODUCTION

Syncing Ink by NSangou Njikam
Directed by Niegel Smith
Previews begin Friday, February 3 and opens Wednesday, February 8 and runs through March 5

"Now what you hear is not a test/I'm rapping to the beat!" Gordon wants to learn how to rap, thinking it will gain him respect, admiration, and the attention of a beautiful woman. What he doesn't know is that his journey to learn how to rhyme will take him not just deeper into Hip Hop, but deeper into his legacy and his purpose.

ALLEY ALL NEW
Alley All New is comprised of a variety of public and in-house programs designed to support playwrights and cater to the needs of each new project. Through this initiative, the Alley plans to produce more world premieres, commission new plays, and engage and support playwrights year round. The Alley All New Festival made its debut this past winter and will be back again with more workshop performances and play readings, as well as the World Premiere production of Syncing Ink. The dates for the 2017 Alley All New Festival are February 2 - 12, with special events and final festival presentations February 10-12. Join the Alley Insider Group by emailing alleyinsider@alleytheatre.org and learn more about new work in development and be the first to hear about Alley All New events. More information and updates can be found on alleytheatre.org/allnew, on Facebook and #AlleyAllNew.

SPONSORS:
Alley All New Festival is sponsored by C. Howard Pieper Foundation, Inc., The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and Sally J. Langston. Syncing Ink is sponsored by Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. The Alley Theatre is supported by the 2016-2017 season sponsor United Airlines, the official airline of the Alley Theatre.

ABOUT THE Alley Theatre
The Alley Theatre, one of America's leading not-for-profit theatres, is a nationally recognized performing arts company led by Artistic Director Gregory Boyd and Managing Director Dean R. Gladden. The Alley produces up to 16 plays each year in its newly renovated theatre, ranging from the best current work, to re-invigorated classic plays, to new plays by contemporary writers. The Alley is home to a Resident Company of actors. In addition, the Alley engages theatre artists of every discipline - actors, designers, composers, playwrights - who work on individual productions throughout each season as Visiting Artists.

After a year-long, $46.5 million renovation during the 2014-15 season, the Alley Theatre now possesses the most technically advanced stage facilities of any non-profit theater in the country. The renovation of the Hubbard Theatre at the Alley was completed in October 2015 - and created a new 774 seat state-of-the-art performance venue. Matched with the 310-seat Neuhaus Theatre, the Alley offers nearly 500 performances each season. The Company reaches over 200,000 people each year through its performance and education programs. Its audience enrichment programs include pre-show and post-performance talks, events, and workshops for audience members of all ages.