Crime Writer Patricia Highsmith is the Subject of Joanna Murray-Smith's SWITZERLAND

59E59 Theaters welcomes the NYC premiere of SWITZERLAND written by Joanna Murray-Smith and directed by Dan Foster. Produced by Hudson Stage Company,SWITZERLAND begins performances on Thursday, February 7 for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 3. Press Opening is Thursday, February 14 at 7:15 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Friday at 7:15 PM; Saturday at 2:15 PM & 7:15 PM; and Sunday at 2:15 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison). Single tickets are $25 - $35 ($24.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call the 59E59 Box Office at 646-892-7999 or visit www.59e59.org.

It's 1995 in the Swiss Alps and the reclusive crime writer Patricia Highsmith is visited by a genial young man from her New York publisher, sent to convince her to write the final installment of her best-selling Mr. Ripley series. What first appears to be a standard cat-and-mouse game of wit and wiles soon becomes a dance to the death. Who is the cat and who is the mouse? And who will make it out of Switzerland alive? From Australia's most celebrated playwright, Joanna Murray-Smith.

The design team includes James J. Fenton (scenic design); Andrew Gmoser (lighting design);Charlotte Palmer-Lane (costume design); Garrett Hood (original music and sound design). The fight choreographer is Jared Kirby. The Production Stage Manager is Helen Irene Muller.

Joanna Murray-Smith's (playwright) many plays have been performed around the world. They includeThe Female of the Species, which ran in the West End, Bombshells, Ninety (all produced at Melbourne Theatre Company), Rapture, Nightfall, Redemption, Love Child, Atlanta, (all at the Playbox Theatre Company), Flame, and Ridge's Lovers. Honour was produced on the West End in 2006 starring Diana Rigg and was previously directed at the Royal National Theatre in London by Roger Michell to rave reviews. Previously, Honour had a public reading in New York in 1996 with Meryl Streep and Sam Waterston and went on to have a Broadway production in 1998. The play has had productions in Brazil, Portugal, Malaysia, New Zealand, San Francisco, Canada, and Tokyo. Many of Joanna's plays have been adapted for radio, including Australian, BBC, American and Swedish radio. Her plays have been nominated for many awards and Honour won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award in 1996. Joanna's first opera (libretto), Love in the Age of Therapy, was produced by Opera Australia at the Melbourne International Festival (composed by Paul Grabowsky) in October 2002 and was seen at the Sydney Opera House in early 2003 as part of the Opera Australia season and the Sydney Festival. Joanna is the author of three published novels, Sunnyside (Penguin 2005), Truce (Penguin 1994), and Judgment Rock(Penguin, 2002), which has been sold to Germany. Her play Bombshells was nominated for the Outstanding Touring Production Award at the twenty-sixth Annual DORA Mavor Moore Awards in Toronto, Canada.

Dan Foster (director) is a co-founder of Hudson Stage. For HSC he has directed Shining City, You Will Remember Me (American Premiere), Outside Mullingar, A Number, Stones in His Pockets, Rabbit Hole, Mary's Wedding, and Murderers, among others. Regional productions include Sunday in the Park with George, November, Angel Street, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Other Desert Cities, Twelfth Night, The Cocktail Hour and the world premiere of The Molly Maguires. He directed the award-winning Sibling Revelry starring Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway in New York and London. Internationally he has directed at London's Donmar Warehouse, Gran Teatre del Liceu, in Barcelona, Theatre Estradi in Moscow, and recently Anthony Warlow and Faith Prince at the Sydney Opera House. Other projects include The Santa Fe Theater Festival, Seven starring Meryl Streep, and The Festival of Broadway with Stephen Schwartz in Tasmania. Mr. Foster was a member of the Circle Rep Directing Lab. As an actor, he appeared in the Broadway production of City of Angels, Off Broadway in Cymbeline, the Chicago production of Baby (Jefferson Award nomination, Best Actor), and on TV in The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, Against the Law, Lemon Sky, and All My Children.

Photo by Rona Faure