Young Jean Lee's LEAR Closes 1/31 at Soho Rep

Off-Broadway's eleven-time Obie Award-winning Soho Rep (46 Walker Street) will present a diverse array of contemporary theater artists, beginning with Young Jean Lee's LEAR (January 7 - January 31, 2010); followed by Gregory Moss' ORANGE, HAT & GRACE (March 11 - April 4, 2010) directed by Soho Rep Artistic Director Sarah Benson; and concluding with Cynthia Hopkins' THE TRUTH: A TRAGEDY (May 6 - May 30); and will implement a new humanities programming initiative - FEED - for all main stage productions during the company's 2009-10 season, it has been announced by Soho Rep Artistic Director Sarah Benson.

"We are thrilled to be producing this ambitious season of new plays by these remarkable and compelling contemporary artists that all speak to Soho Rep's mission" said Artistic Director Sarah Benson.

January 2010

The World Premiere of LEAR - written and directed by Young Jean Lee and co-produced with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, January 7th through January 31st. Young Jean Lee returns to Soho Rep - where she first directed her play THE APPEAL in 2004- with her radical and moving response to King Lear in her boldest work to date - LEAR.

Following last season's hit THE SHIPMENT - which Charles Isherwood of the New York Times heralded as "a subversive, seriously funny new theater piece by the adventurous playwright Young Jean Lee" - OBIE-award winner Lee stages a collision between Shakespeare's text and the most candid elements of her own life, challenging our love of watching terrible things. The result: a laugh-out-loud tragedy about despair, the end of life, and familial piety.

Commissioned by Soho Rep, LEAR will feature a cast which includes Jim Himelsbach, Paul Lazar, April Matthis, Okwui Okpokwasili, Pete Simpson, Amelia Workman and Paul Zimet. The design team for LEAR will be David Evans Morris (Scenic Design), Roxana Ramseur (Costume Design), Raquel David (Lighting Design), and Matt Tierney (Sound Design).

MARCH/APRIL 2010

Soho Rep presents the World-Premiere of ORANGE, HAT & GRACE - by Gregory Moss and directed by Sarah Benson (Drama Desk nominee for her direction of last season's critically acclaimed New York premiere of BLASTED) - March 11, 2010 through April 4, 2010. Inside a cabin in the woods, a woman living in solitude is wooed by a strange half-civilized man-a man very much like a man she once knew-while out in the woods a mysterious figure approaches for a last family visit. ORANGE, HAT & GRACE is a darkly comic exploration of language and ecology in a world that is falling apart.

Written by Gregory Moss (last season's punkplay) and directed by Soho Rep Artistic Director Sarah Benson (Obie Award-winner and Drama Desk nominee for her direction of BLASTED) ORANGE, HAT & GRACE was developed in the 2008-2009 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Cast and creative team for ORANGE HAT & GRACE is TBA.

MAY, 2010

Soho Rep presents the U.S. Premiere of THE TRUTH: A TRAGEDY - written and performed by Cynthia Hopkins, directed by DJ Mendel - May 6 through May 30. This is Hopkins' first production since her recently completed trilogy at St Ann's Warehouse. Encompassing songs and dance, video and objects, this cabinet of curiosities is filled with detritus both real and imagined as Hopkins leads us into an engrossing multi-dimensional documentary 'museum' created as an homage to her dying father.

THE TRUTH: A TRAGEDY was co-commissioned by Les Subsistances in Lyons, France and Soho Rep. THE TRUTH will include design by Jeff Sugg (33 VARIATIONS) and choreography by Faye Driscoll.

For those who can't wait until 2010 to delve into Soho Rep, there will be a Season Preview party to kick off its 2009-10 season held at Soho Rep (46 Walker Street) on Tuesday, November 24th at 7:00pm that will be free and open to the public, giving the opportunity to meet and greet the artists from the upcoming season and hearing excerpted songs from Cynthia Hopkins' THE TRUTH: A TRAGEDY. The Soho Rep Season Preview party is part of the Lower Manhattan Arts Leaders' Fall Downtown 2009, a full menu of free and affordable arts events presented by LoMAL, 11 vibrant arts organizations located in and around Lower Manhattan.

In addition to the main stage productions, Soho Rep is pleased to announce the creation of FEED, its new humanities program to accompany all main stage productions. Through this exciting new initiative, audiences will be treated to provocative and informative events, dialogues, discussions and panels to illuminate and inspire. The aim of FEED is to make the experience of seeing a play at Soho Rep all-the-more engaging by pairing wonderful artists with exciting thinkers. All FEED events are free.

Conceived in consort with Soho Rep's season artists, FEED will produce three live events per production - using affiliated writers, directors, filmmakers, journalists, academics, newsmakers and musicians - that look to address the themes of the plays in surprising and rich ways. FEED hopes to inspire the audience to think about Soho Rep's work in the broadest possible ways.

Additionally, FEED will include exciting new web content that will be exclusively found at sohorep.org. Such content will include: video interviews; blogs; photos; chats with designers, actors and writers; and more, that will put Soho Rep's work in a broader cultural and artistic context. Through special partnership with Samuel French and FEED Soho Rep will also publish all play texts, available at cost at the theater for $5. FEED will debut in November 2009.

Soho Rep will also continue its popular Writer/Director Lab - now in its 12th season - beginning April 19 through May 24 and the 3rd season of its Soho Rep Studio Series - free, open-to-the-public workshops of new plays in Spring 2010.

Tickets for all main stage productions will be $30 for general admission and $40 for premium reserved seating; and of course Soho Rep will continue its popular 99-cent tickets for all Sunday performances.

ABOUT Soho Rep

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 of its audience 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.

For information about the Soho Rep season, call (212) 941 8632 or visit www.sohorep.org

 

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