Woolly Mammoth Reunites Original Cast and Creative Team for STUPID F##KING BIRD, Beginning Tonight

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is bringing back the bird and reuniting the entire cast and creative team of Aaron Posner's Stupid f-ing Bird after its runaway success in the summer of 2013. Nominated for eight Helen Hayes Awards and winner for Outstanding Resident Play and Outstanding New Play or Musical, Stupid f-ing Bird is directed by Woolly Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz and runs for three weeks, beginning tonight, July 28, 2014, and continuing through August 17, 2014.

In this irreverent, contemporary, and very funny remix of Chekhov's The Seagull, award-winning playwright Aaron Posner wages a timeless battle between young and old, past and present, in search of the true meaning of it all. An aspiring young director rampages against the art created by his mother's generation. A nubile young actress wrestles with an aging Hollywood star for the affection of a renowned novelist. And everyone discovers just how disappointing love, art, and growing up can be.

Woolly has reassembled the entire original cast including Woolly Company Members Rick Foucheux* (R.U.R., The Choir, Dead Man's Cell Phone), Kimberly Gilbert* (You for Me for You, A Bright New Boise, In the Next Room or the vibrator play, Clybourne Park, Boom), and Kate Eastwood Norris* (Full Circle, Fever/Dream, She Stoops To Comedy) as well as noted actors and Woolly favorites Katie DeBuys*, Brad Koed*, Cody Nickell*, and Darius Pierce*.

The summer remount of Stupid f-ing Bird will serve as a precursor to Woolly's 35th Anniversary season, "Let Them Eat...," whetting appetites and setting the table for the theatre's most deliciously decadent season yet. Like Aaron Posner's struggling protagonists, Season 35's cast of characters are under attack from outside and inside forces-breaking down, breaking out, and groping toward new solutions.

More information about Stupid f-ing Bird and Woolly's 35th Anniversary Season is available at woollymammoth.net.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

Aaron Posner (playwright) is a freelance director and playwright, an Associate Artist at the Folger Theatre and Milwaukee Rep, and was a founding Artistic Director of Philadelphia's Arden Theatre. His plays and productions have been seen at more than a third of the LORT theatres in the country. Aaron has been a fan of Woolly since the early 90's and directed In the Next Room or the vibrator play at Woolly in 2011. He has won Barrymore Awards as both a director and playwright and Helen Hayes Awards for Best Director three times in the last eight years. His published and produced adaptations include The Chosen, My Name Is Asher Lev (currently in an open-ended run Off-Broadway), Sometimes A Great Notion, Mark Twain's A Murder, A Mystery & A Marriage (with James Sugg), and many more. Aaron is an Eisenhower Fellow and a graduate of Northwestern University. He is originally from Eugene, Oregon, and lives just outside DC with his wife, actress Erin Weaver, and his tiny daughter, Maisie.

Howard Shalwitz (director) has been the visionary force behind Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for 35 seasons. Howard received the 2011 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Director for Clybourne Park, and has received multiple Helen Hayes nominations as both a director and an actor. In recent seasons, he directed the world premieres of Civilization, Fever/Dream and Big Death and Little Death, along with She Stoops to Comedy, Measure for Pleasure, and The Faculty Room. Howard has directed for leading New York and regional companies including New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, and Arena Stage. In 2012 he was recognized as Distinguished Finalist for the Zelda Fichandler Award for Outstanding Regional Director and in 2013 he was awarded the Margo Jones Medal for his contributions to American playwriting.

The Stupid f-ing Bird creative team also includes the Set Designer and Woolly Company Member Misha Kachman, Costume Designer Laree Lentz, Lighting Designer and Woolly Company Member Colin K. Bills, and sound design and original music by James Sugg. Woolly Mammoth's Associate Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld serves as the Production Dramaturg and Kristy Matero* as the Production Stage Manager. *Member, Actors' Equity Association

THE STUPID f-ing LOBBY - Patrons will have the opportunity to once again engage with the Stupid f-ing Bird Lobby Experience. Lobby activities originally designed and created in collaboration with Method 121-and profiled in the Capital Business section of The Washington Post-will enable patrons to explore the Pinspiration Boards of the production's artists to learn more about the design and production process and reimagine and share some of the play's most pivotal monologues. These activities will challenge patrons to unleash their inner artist and revolutionize Chekhov's classic work to create new, fresh, and accessible forms of the text.

Stupid f-ing Bird runs tonight, July 28 through August 17 with performances Wednesdays through Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm and 7pm. Monday, July 28 and Tuesday, July 29 will be Pay What You Can performances and will begin at 8pm.

Tickets to Stupid f-ing Bird start at $35 and can be purchased online at woollymammoth.net, by phone at (202) 393-3939, via email at tickets@woollymammoth.net, or in person at the Box Office, located at 641 D Street NW. Patrons who are 30-years-old and younger may, at any time, purchase Section B tickets for $20 to any performance. There are also discounts available for first responder men and women and active US military personnel, spouses, and veterans. More information is available at woollymammoth.net.

Poised to begin its 35th Anniversary Season, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues to hold its place at the leading edge of American theatre. Acknowledged as "one of the most influential outposts for the best new American plays" (The Washington Post), and "known for its productions of innovative new plays" (The New York Times), Woolly Mammoth is a national leader in the development of new works, and one of the best known and most influential mid-sized theatres in America.

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Photo Credit: Stan Barouh