Soho Rep Adds 5 Performances to Young Jean Lee's LEAR

Soho Rep's Artistic Director Sarah Benson has announced that the company's world-premiere of the newest work from Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, LEAR, will have 5 performances added, extending it now through February 6 at Soho Rep (46 Walker St.) in Manhattan. The production began previews on January 7 and will open on January 14.

LEAR marks the return of Obie Award winner Young Jean Lee to Soho Rep, where her play THE APPEAL debuted in 2004. Ms. Lee's most recent work in New York was last season's acclaimed production of THE SHIPMENT.

In this rendition of LEAR, Ms. Lee focuses not on the aging Lear and Gloucester, but rather on their adult children, who turned their backs on their fathers' suffering.

Commissioned and workshopped by Soho Rep., LEAR features a cast which includes Paul Lazar, April Matthis, Okwui Okpokwasili, Pete Simpson and Amelia Workman.

LEAR is written and directed by Lee and has stage movement and choreography by Dean Moss. The design team includes David Evans Morris (Scenic Design), Roxana Ramseur (Costume Design), Raquel Davis (Lighting Design), and Matt Tierney (Sound Design).

LEAR is a project of Creative Capital, which receives support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the LEF Foundation, The Muriel Pollia Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the TOBY Fund, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and more than 130 other individuals and institutional donors.

Young Jean Lee (Playwright/Director) has directed her plays at The Kitchen (THE SHIPMENT), The Public Theater (CHURCH), P.S. 122 (CHURCH; PULLMAN, WA), the HERE Arts Center (SONGS OF THE DRAGONS FLYING TO HEAVEN), Soho Rep. (THE APPEAL), and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (GROUNDWORK OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS). She has worked with Radiohole and the National Theater of the United States of America. She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P, has done residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, and Hedgebrook, and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. Lee's plays have been published in "New Downtown Now" (an anthology she edited with Mac Wellman), in "Three Plays by Young Jean Lee" (Samuel French) and in a collection of all of her plays entitled "Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays" (Theatre Communications Group). Lee is currently under commission from Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She is the artistic director of Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and is the recipient of a 2009 Brooklyn College Young Alumni Award, the ZKB Patronage Prize 2007 of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel, and a 2007 Emerging Playwright OBIE Award. It has also been noted of Lee's work that "She offers the pleasure of brazen theatrical inventiveness." - The New Yorker and that it provides "the clearest indication that the avant-garde isn't dead, and has never been funnier." - New York Magazine. For more information on Young Jean Lee and Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, please visit www.youngjeanlee.org.

Now in its 34th year, Soho Rep.'s 2009-10 season is the third under the leadership of Artistic Director, Sarah Benson, and the second for Executive Director, Tania Camargo. Soho Rep. is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising, and exuberant new plays. They perform to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over three-quarters aged 18-40.

Critics continue to herald Soho Rep. as the go-to theatre destination for new and original works. New York Magazine states, "this indispensable theater offers more excitement per chair than any space in town," Time Out New York says, "Soho Rep. is the best theater in NYC (official)," Variety exclaims "[Soho Rep.] has claimed an increasingly vital spot...the venue has suddenly become one to watch for Manhattan theatergoers starved for new work," and the New York Times declares Soho Rep. to be "one of the most daring companies."

Over the last decade, Soho Rep. productions have garnered eleven OBIE Awards -- most recently for Sarah Benson (director) and Louisa Thompson (set designer) for last season's critically acclaimed New York premiere of Sarah Kane's BLASTED; six Drama Desk nominations, two for BLASTED (Outstanding Director of a Play - Sarah Benson and Outstanding Actor in a Play - Reed Birney) and four for their critically acclaimed production of FRANKENSTEIN, the Oppenheimer Award for EVERYTHING WILL BE DIFFERENT, and two Kesselring Awards for Melissa James Gibson and Mark Schultz. In recent years, Soho Rep. has presented plays by established and emerging theatre artists such as Richard Maxwell, Mac Wellman, Young Jean Lee and The Flying Machine.

Now running through February 6 (with additional performances on Tuesday, 2nd; Wednesday, February 3rd; Thursday, February 4th; Friday, February 5th; and Saturday, February 6th - all at 7:30pm) performances of LEAR run Tuesdays - Sundays at 7:30pm at Soho Rep. (46 Walker Street - between Broadway &Church, 2 blocks south of Canal Street). Tickets through January 31st are 99 cents for all Sunday performances, $30 for general admission and $40 for premium reserved seating, and for the 5 added performances are $40 for general admission and $50 for premium reserved seating, and can be reserved by calling TheaterMania at 212-352-3101 or online at www.sohorep.org.

For additional information about LEAR or Soho Rep., call 212-941-8632 or visit www.sohorep.org

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