New Works by Alda, Rapp and O'Hare Wrap Up Seattle Rep's New Play Program Season

Capping off a season of new play development-which included performances of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later and Equivocation with Oregon Shakespeare Festival-Seattle Repertory Theatre presents three high-profile new plays under the umbrella of their New Play Program.

The world premiere of An Iliad opens in the Leo K. Theatre for a run April 9-May 16, 2010. Created by Broadway actor Denis O'Hare and director Lisa Peterson, the play is an intimate, modern re-telling of Homer's famous tale of gods, heroes, and the Trojan War. O'Hare was originally slated to perform the piece, but has since stepped down due to scheduling conflicts. Seattle actor Hans Altwies will take on the one and only part in this imaginative celebration of the art of storytelling.

Bookending An Iliad are two workshop performances held in the Rep's black box space, the PONCHO. Actor/playwright Alan Alda ("M*A*S*H," "The West Wing") will be in Seattle working on his new play Radiance, a surprising peek at the outrageous life of scientist Marie Curie, directed by Daniel Sullivan. There will be three public workshops March 26-28, 2010. Pulitzer-nominated Adam Rapp's play Welcome Home Dean Charbonneau, about a Wisconsin family's attempt to celebrate the return of their son from Iraq (to both comic and heart wrenching effect), performs May 21-23, 2010. Rapp directs.

"This is such a fitting way to end a really successful year of collaborations with playwrights," said Producing Artistic Director Jerry Manning. "With these three plays, Seattle audiences have the opportunity to be partners in the development of some of the most exciting new American theatre, to say, 'I was there at the beginning...'"

Originally formalized under former Artistic Director Daniel Sullivan, Seattle Rep's New Play Program helped launch many plays that went on to national success, including Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles and Peter Parnell's The Cider House Rules. During this 2009-10 season, the re-instated program has included one of the premiere readings of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, readings by Cheryl West and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, and, with Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the presentation of the world premiere production of Bill Cain's Equivocation, which began its off-Broadway run Feb. 10.

Tickets for An Iliad are currently on sale through the Seattle Rep Box Office at (206) 443-2222 as well as online at www.seattlerep.org. A very limited number of tickets are available to the general public for both Radiance and Welcome Home Dean Charbonneau, and they can be purchased starting Feb. 23 by calling the Box Office.

An Iliad Performance/Ticket Details: Performances of An Iliad are at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, with 2 p.m. matinees on most Saturdays and Sundays. There is an American Sign Language (ASL)-interpreted performance on May 2 at 2 p.m. Post-play discussions will be held after the performances on Sunday, April 18 at 2 p.m.; Thursday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 25 at 2 p.m.

Tickets range from $30-$52.* Anyone 25 and under may purchase tickets for only $12 for any performance (with ID - call for details). Discounted tickets for groups of ten or more may be purchased by calling (206) 443-2224. For ticket reservations, call the Seattle Repertory Theatre Box Office at (206) 443-2222 or toll-free at (877) 900-9285, or go online at www.seattlerep.org. *Prices subject to change.

Radiance and Welcome Home Dean Charbonneau Reading/Ticket Details: Radiance readings are March 26, 7:30 p.m.; March 27, 7:30 p.m.; and March 28, 2 p.m.; Welcome Home Dean Charbonneau readings are May 21, 7:30 p.m.; May 22, 7:30 p.m.; and May 23, 2 p.m.

Tickets are $15 for one workshop, $25 for both and may be purchased through the Box Office only.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alan Alda has the distinction of being nominated for an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy-as well as publishing a bestselling book-all in the same year (2005). His Emmy nomination was for his role on The West Wing. His Tony nomination that year was for his role in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Glengarry GLen Ross. On film that year, he appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, for which he received an Academy Award nomination and for which he was also nominated for a British Academy Award. In addition to The Aviator, Alda's films include Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everyone Says I Love You, Flirting With Disaster, Manhattan Murder Mystery, And The Band Played On, Same Time, Next Year and California Suite. Alda played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series M*A*S*H, and wrote and directed many of the episodes. His 33 Emmy nominations include performances in 2009 for 30 Rock, in 2006 for West Wing (winning his sixth Emmy), and in 1999 for ER. He was presented with the National Science Board's Public Service Award in 2006 for his efforts in helping to broaden the public's understanding of science.

Denis O'Hare has appeared in numerous Broadway productions including Take Me Out (Tony Award for Best Actor), Assassins (Tony Nomination), Sweet Charity (Drama Desk Award), Inherit the Wind, Major Barbara, Racing Demon, and Cabaret. Mr. O'Hare has appeared in over 30 feature films including The Anniversary Party, 21 Grams, Garden State, Derailed, Michael Clayton, A Mighty Heart, Half Nelson, Milk, Changeling, Baby Mama, and Charlie Wilson's War. TV credits include CSI: Miami, Law & Order, and Brothers & Sisters. In September, he joined the cast of HBO's True Blood.

Lisa Peterson's recent credits include Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked at Primary Stages; Deborah Laufer's End Days at Ensemble Studio Theater; Midsummer at Hartford Stage; Othello at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Poor Itch at The Public Theater; King Lear at California Shakespeare Theater; Major Barbara at the Guthrie; Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner at Hartford Stage; Mother Courage at La Jolla Playhouse and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Water and Power at the Mark Taper Forum; Ridiculous Fraud at the McCarter Theatre; The Rainmaker at Arena Stage; Tight Embrace at Intar; Carol Mulroney at Huntington Theatre Co; Oedipus at the Guthrie; Electricidad at Mark Taper Forum; Casino Paradise at the Prince Music Theatre; Candida at the McCarter Theatre; Birdy at the Women's Project; and The Fourth Sister at the Vineyard Theatre. She won an Obie Award for her direction of Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire at New York Theatre Workshop, where her other productions include Bexley Oh!, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Slavs, Traps, and The Waves, which she adapted from the Virginia Woolf novel with composer David Bucknam. For ten years she was Resident Director at the Mark Taper Forum. Prior to that, Lisa was Associate Director at La Jolla Playhouse. She has directed world premieres by many major American writers including Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, Donald Margulies, Jose Rivera, Ellen McLaughlin, Mac Wellman, Polly Pen, Stephen Belber, Naomi Wallace, David Henry Hwang, Luis Alfaro, Chay Yew, Bridget Carpenter, Annie Weisman, Alice Tuan, Culture Clash, and many others.

Adam Rapp is a novelist, filmmaker, and an OBIE Award-winning playwright and director. His plays include Nocturne (A.R.T., New York Theatre Workshop), Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (Victory Gardens; The Arcola, London), Animals and Plants (A.R.T.), Blackbird (The Bush, London; Pittsburgh City Theatre; Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), Stone Cold Dead Serious (A.R.T., Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), Finer Noble Gases (26th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays), Essential Self Defense (Playwrights Horizons/Edge Theater, Drama Desk Nomination for Best Original Music), Kindness (Playwrights Horizons), and the 2006 Pulitzer-nominated Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf). As a director, his production of Blackbird (Edge Theater) received two Drama Desk Nominations. His production of Red Light Winter was the first play to completely sell-out Steppenwolf's Garage Theater and won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work.

Daniel Sullivan served as Artistic Director of Seattle Repertory Theatre from 1981 to 1997, where he directed more than 60 productions including Uncle Vanya, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, She Stoops To Conquer, Inspecting Carol, The Mandrake, The Wedding, As You Like It, and Major Barbara among many others. He established Seattle Rep's new play program, developing new works by Jon Robin Baitz, Herb Gardner, A.R. Gurney, Arthur Miller, Wendy Wasserstein, Charlayne Woodard, and William Mastrosimone, among others. Daniel Sullivan has directed in theatres both nationally and abroad. Mr. Sullivan's revival of Accent on Youth was on Broadway this past season, as well as Twelfth Night in Central Park. Recent Broadway credits include The Homecoming, Prelude to a Kiss, Rabbit Hole, After the Night and the Music, Julius Caesar, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen, The Retreat from Moscow, Proof, Morning's At Seven, I'm Not Rappaport, Major Barbara, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Heidi Chronicles, Conversations With My Father, Lincoln Center's Ah! Wilderness, The Sisters Rosensweig, and An American Daughter.

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New Play Program Fact Sheet

WHAT: Seattle Rep's New Play Program is the theatre's umbrella for readings, workshops, and commissions. Originally launched under former Artistic Director Daniel Sullivan, this 2009-10 season marks the official re-instatement of a formalized program dedicated to cultivating new voices and presenting world premieres by some of the country's top playwrights.

2009-10 New Play Program presentations included:
Northwest Playwrights Alliance New Play Readings every second Tuesday in the PONCHO
Reading: The Last Best Place by Todd Jefferson Moore and Sara Jo Breslow, Sept. 12, 2009
Reading: The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, Oct. 12, 2009
Workshop and Staged Reading: Pullman Porter Blues, a new musical by Cheryl West, Nov. 3-8, 2009 World premiere production of Equivocation by Bill Cain, presented with Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Nov. 22-Dec. 13, 2009
Workshop and Staged Reading: Lidless by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, a collaboration with the University of Washington School of Drama, Feb. 4-7, 2010
An Iliad created by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson, April 9-May 16, 2010 in the Leo K. Theatre
Spring Workshop Series: Radiance by Alan Alda March 26-28, 2010, and Welcome Home Dean Charbonneau by Adam Rapp May 21-23, 2010

WHERE: Seattle Repertory Theatre is located at Seattle Center at the corner of Second Ave. and Mercer St., Seattle, Washington.

Seattle Rep's 2009-2010 season sponsor is ArtsFund; Producing Partners for An Iliad are 4Culture and The Chisholm Foundation; Producing Associate is Horizons Foundation.

Seattle Repertory Theatre, founded in 1963, is led by Producing Artistic Director Jerry Manning and Managing Director Benjamin Moore. One of America's premier nonprofit resident theatres, Seattle Repertory Theatre has achieved international renown for its consistently high production and artistic standards, and was awarded the 1990 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. With an emphasis on entertaining plays of true dramatic and literary worth, Seattle Rep produces a season of plays along with educational programs, new play workshops and special presentations.

For more information, visit http://www.seattlerep.org/

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