Lesser America to Premiere New Drama HALF MOON BAY at Cherry Lane Theatre

Lesser America (The Bachelors, Carnival Kids, Trevor) will present HALF MOON BAY by Dan Moyer. It will be directed by Jess Chayes (AD of Peter and The Starcatcher) starring Keilly McQuail (You Got Older, Her Requiem) and Gabriel King (These Seven Sicknesses). Previews begin May 12 at Cherry Lane Theatre, where Lesser America is the inaugural Company in Residence. Opening set for Thursday, May 19.

After a chance encounter in the bar of a bowling alley, two broken hopefuls share a boozy, electric evening. HALF MOON BAY is a darkly comic, raw new play about the lovers we take to bed and the strangers we find there in the morning.

Keilly McQuail has been seen Off-Broadway in Her Requiem (Lincoln Center) and You Got Older (Page 73). Other recent credits include Bad Jews at The Long Wharf (CT Critics Circle Award), Heartbreak (Bushwick Starr), and Preston Sturges' Strictly Dishonorable (The Flea). She is a graduate of NYU Tisch's program with the Atlantic Theater Company.

Gabriel King's New York credits include: La Brea at Clubbed Thumb, Henry V and Murrow's Boys at Irondale, The Maids at The 4th Street Theatre, as well as Restoration Comedy and These Seven Sicknesses with Exit Pursued By a Bear (Founding Member). Regionally he has starred in Troublemaker at Berkeley Rep; Comedy of Errors, House of Home, and Western Country at Williamstown Theatre Festival; and Rock & Roll at Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre. He holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama where he was the recipient of the 2010 John Arthur Kennedy Acting Award.

Dan Moyer is a Brooklyn-based playwright and founding member of Shelby Company, which produced his plays Fallsway, You May Be Splendid Now and Winnemucca. With Jonathan Goldberg he created the alt-comedy show Ephemerama and has written for the podcast Limetown.

Jess Chayes is a Brooklyn-based director and founding co-artistic director of The Assembly, with whom she has co-created and directed eight original productions. Recent directing includes shows at New Georges, Ars Nova, Dutch Kills and workshops at NYTW, Williamstown Theatre Festival and The Vineyard Theatre. Associate directing: Peter and the Starcatcher (Broadway and New World Stages), Misery (Broadhurst Theatre). She is a NYTW Usual Suspect.

Lesser America's past productions included Caroline V. McGraw's The Bachelors at Rattlestick, directed by Portia Krieger; Brian Watkins' Wyoming, directed by Danya Taymor; Lucas Kavner's Carnival Kids, directed by Stephen Brackett, a New York Times Critic's Pick that was published by Samuel French; and Nick Jones' Trevor starring Steven Boyer, Geneva Carr and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Tony Nominees for Hand to God), a New York Times Critic's Pick and one of Time Out NY's Best of 2013. Trevor was published in Playscripts' Downtown Anthology, where Lesser America was featured alongside P73, Soho Rep, HERE and other notable Off-Broadway institutions. The Lesser Americans are members of the Indie Theater Hall of Fame and the company has multiple NY Innovative Theater Award nominations. Recent productions have been supported in part by grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Lesser America, founded in 2010, and co-run by Daniel Abeles, Nate Miller, Laura Ramadei, and Claire Siebers, is dedicated to affordable, accessible theater with high entertainment value.

In 1924, a group of theater artists, colleagues of Edna St. Vincent Millay, created Cherry Lane Playhouse. The Downtown Theater movement, The Living Theatre, and Theatre of the Absurd all took root and it proved fertile ground for 20th century dramaturgy's seminal voices, inc. F. Scott Fitzgerald, O'Neill, Odets, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, William Saroyan, Beckett, Albee, Pinter, Ionesco, LeRoi Jones, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Joe Orton and David Mamet. In 1996 Angelina Fiordellisi revived Cherry Lane, founded the Cherry Lane Alternative and created a number of programs to launch the next generation of American playwrights. Visit www.cherrylanetheatre.org for entire production history.

HALF MOON BAY runs May 12 - June 4, Thursday - Sunday at 8pm with an additional performance Wednesday, May 18 at 8pm. Cherry Lane Theatre is located at 38 Commerce Street (three blocks south of Christopher Street, just west of Seventh Avenue - accessible from 1 train to Christopher Street). Tickets are $18, available at 212-352-3101 or www.lesseramerica.com.

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