PlayCo's U.S. Premiere of OH MY SWEET LAND Extends Through October 22

In response to demand, The Play Company (PlayCo), led by Founding Producer Kate Loewald and Managing Director Robert Bradshaw, has extended the U.S. premiere of Oh My Sweet Land, written and directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi, through October 22, 2017.

The extension adds seven performances to the previously announced run, including a matinee performance on Sunday, October 22 at 3pm (followed by an evening performance in the same venue at 7:30pm). A limited number of student tickets will go on sale September 8 at 10am and can be purchased at PlayCo.org. Tickets for the extension week are on sale now.

This intimate solo play recounts one woman's journey to Lebanon, Jordan and, finally, Syria, and the chilling events reported by the people she meets along the way. Oh My Sweet Land will offer audiences an intimate, multi-sensory experience, staged in private homes and community centers throughout New York City's five boroughs as well as within select New Jersey venues.

In Oh My Sweet Land, audiences are invited to step into the kitchen. The onions are cooking on the stove and meat is on the cutting board waiting to be chopped. Our host is preparing kubah, a traditional Syrian dish. While she cooks, she tells us the story of meeting Ashraf, a Syrian exile, and falling in love with him as he desperately tries to help those he was forced to leave behind. When he vanishes, she impulsively trails him to her homeland-one she has never known, now consumed by war. As the meal comes together and then falls apart, we learn the stories of brutality, grace and humanity of those she witnessed along the way.

Amir Nizar Zuabi developed Oh My Sweet Land through a series of interviews he conducted with German-Syrian actor Corinne Jaber, the co-conceiver of the work, who originated the principal role. Oh My Sweet Land premiered at Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne in Switzerland, and garnered acclaim at The Young Vic in London where Zuabi serves as an international associate. Nadine Malouf performs the U.S. premiere, directed by Zuabi. PlayCo introduces vital playwrights and plays from around the world to the U.S. This immersive production will lift what's happening in Syria out of the news cycle and facilitate human connection with the country's people and their stories.

Zuabi is a theatre director, playwright and actor. In 2009, he became one of five co-founders of the independent theatre company ShiberHur (A Bit of Freedom), in the Israeli city of Haifa. His productions there include I Am Yusuf and This Is My Brother and Three Days of Mourning. Oh My Sweet Land had its world premiere in Lauseanne, Switzerland, and has been seen in London at The Young Vic, Dublin at the Abbey Theater, in Amsterdam, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai and Toronto. The script is published by Bloomsbury.

Oh My Sweet Land will be performed by Nadine Malouf. The creative team for Oh My Sweet Land includes Mariana Sanchez (Scenic & Costume Design), Nicole Pearce (Lighting Design) and Mark van Hare (Sound Design). Casting is by Caparelliotis Casting.

Performances of Oh My Sweet Land take place September 8-10, September 12-17, September 19-24, September 26-October 1, October 3, October 6-7, October 10-15, and October 17-22 at 7:30pm; Wednesday, October 4 at 6:30pm; Sunday, October 8 at 4:00pm; and October 22 at 3:00pm. For tickets ($25-65) and more information, visit playco.org or call 866-811-4111.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM:

Amir Nizar Zuabi is an award-winning theater writer & director, the artistic director of ShiberHur theater company, an associate director of Young Vic London, and an associate partner of the United Theaters Europe.

Writing and directing credits include I am Yusuf and This is my Brother, In the Penal Colony, Alive From Palestine, Oh My Sweet Land, The Beloved, (co-produced by ShiberHur/Young Vic) Three Days of Mourning, West of Us the Sea, Dry Mud, Against A Hard Surface (ShiberHur). Directing credits include: Samson and Delilah (Flanders Opera, Antwerp) Jidarriya by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (Edinburgh International Festival, Bouffes du Nord, and world tour), Mid Spring Musical The Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company as part of World Shakespeare Festival). Currently Zuabi is writing a play for the National Theatre London.

Zuabi met Corinne Jaber through David Lan, artistic director of The Young Vic (where the play was produced in 2014). After Lan heard Jaber's plans for Oh My Sweet Land, he brought the two together in order for them to collaborate on giving form to the piece. Drawing on many conversations the two had with Syrian refugees, Zuabi wrote the monologue for Jaber and directed the production.

Nadine Malouf most recently played the lead role of Laila, in the world premiere adaptation of Khalid Hosseini's best-selling novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, at American Conservatory Theatre, that then went on to Theatre Calgary, in Canada. She also played the title role, in the World Premiere of Salomé, written and directed by Yaël Farber, at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC (winner of 7 Helen Hayes Awards in 2016). Off-Broadway Malouf most recently appeared in the World Premiere of Ultimate Beauty Bible (Page73), This is How it Ends (59E59 Theaters),The School for Scandal (Redbull Theatre), The Who & The What (Lincoln Center-LCT3), Exile (Cherry Lane). Malouf was also a part of the Les Misérables 25thAnniversary National Tour. Other theatre includes Scorched (Syracuse Stage), and Macbeth (GBS Theatre, RADA). Malouf has developed new work at Sundance Theatre Lab, The Public, Lincoln Center, New York Theatre Workshop, and most recently with Simon McBurney. In television Malouf can be seen on Mysteries of Laura, and Odd Mom Out. In film Malouf recently played the lead role in the short filmResolutions, which premiered this year at the LA Indie Film Festival; other films include May in the Summer, Shame, and Static Shock. Malouf received her training at Syracuse University, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Mariana Sanchez (Scenic & Costume Design) is a New York-based scenic designer, originally from Mexico, with a background in architecture. Her set design credits include: Fade (Primary Stages), The River Bride (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Troy (The Public Theater), Frontieres Sans Frontieres (The Bushwick Starr), War (Yale Repertory Theater), Chained Woman (The New School for Drama) among others. MFA: Yale School of Drama where she received The Donald and Zorca Oenslager Fellowship Award in Design and the FONCA Artistic Residency Award. www.marianasanchezdesign.com

Nicole Pearce (Lighting Design) previously with The Play Company: Sakharam Binder, Edgewise, & The Golden Dragon. Selected credits include work with directors: Edward Albee, Leigh Silverman, Trip Cullman, Pam MacKinnon, Maria Mileaf, Jade King Carroll, & Ed Sylvanus Iskandar with companies including The Cherry Lane, Labryinth Theater Company, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, Philadelphia Theater Company, & Williamstown Theater Festival. Selected work in dance with Mark Morris, Jessica Lang, Aszure Barton, Robert Battle, Andrea Miller, John Heginbotham, Brian Brooks, Alexander Ekman, Kyle Abraham, & Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa, and companies including: American Ballet Theater, Joffrey Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, Finnish National Opera, Hubbard Street, Gallim, Mark Morris Dance Group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, & Nederlands Dance Theater. www.nicolepearcedesign.com

Mark van Hare (Sound) is a composer and Sound Designer working in New York City. Recent credits include 3/FIFTHS at 3LD Art & Technology, Villa with The Play Company at The Wild Project, Destiny of Desire at The Garden Theatre (Winter Garden, FL), On The Grounds of Belonging (Music Associate) at The Public Theater, One Flea Spare at The Sheen Center, Paris! and Nutcracker Rouge! with COMPANY XIV at Irondale Theatre, Twelfth Night at the School of Drama at The New School, Anna Christie at The Wild Project, DIRECTORFEST with The Drama League at The Barrow Group Theatre, The Wild Party with The Dramatic Association at Yale University, Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods at Portland Stage (Portland, ME), This Time at The Sheen Center, Couriers and Contrabands at The Barrow Group Theatre, In Fields Where They Lay at the New Ohio Theatre, and Look Upon Our Lowliness at Harlem School for the Arts Theatre. markvanhare.com

Caparelliotis Casting (Casting). Also for Play Company: Caught. Current Broadway: A Doll's House, Part 2, The Little Foxes and The Glass Menagerie. Recent and Select B'way/Off B'way: Jitney, The Front Page, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Blackbird, The Father, An Act of God, Fish in the Dark, Airline Highway, It's Only a Play, Disgraced, Sex with Strangers, Lost Lake, The Country House, Casa Valentina, Holler if Ya Hear Me, The Trip to Bountiful, Fences. Also: MTC, Signature, Atlantic, LCT3, Ars Nova, Old Globe, Goodman, Steppenwolf, McCarter and others. Film/television: "American Odyssey" (NBC), "How to Get Away With Murder" pilot (ABC), "Ironside" pilot (NBC), "Steel Magnolias" (Sony for Lifetime).

The Play Company is an OBIE Award-winning Off Broadway theater Production Company. Since launching in 1999, PlayCo has produced 32 new plays from the United States, Germany, Romania, Poland, Sweden, Japan, India, Russia, Chile, Mexico, France, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England. PlayCo develops and produces adventurous new plays from the U.S. and around the world, advancing a dynamic global experience of contemporary theater and expanding the American theater repertoire.

As the only New York company regularly producing outstanding contemporary plays from around the world alongside new American work, PlayCo's distinctive international programming links American theatre with world theater, American artists with the global creative community, and American audiences with a whole world of plays.

Photo Credit: Pavel Antonov