Atlantic's 2009 - 10 season: plays by Mamet, Shepard & Brunstetter

Atlantic Theater Company has announced three of its 2009-2010 season productions. The main stage season at the Linda Gross Theater will mark premieres from Atlantic co-founder David Mamet and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Sam Shepard, while Bekah Brunstetter makes her Off Broadway debut at Stage 2 with the world premiere of a new comedy.

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Mamet returns to the company he founded with a double bill of one-act plays - the world premiere of School and the New York premiere of Keep Your Pantheon, following a staging at Center Theatre Group last season, directed by Atlantic Artistic Director Neil Pepe. Mamet was last represented on the Atlantic stage with the comedy 'Romance,' also staged by Pepe.

Fellow Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Sam Shepard will make his Atlantic debut with the U.S. premiere of the Abbey Theatre's production of Ages of the Moon following a world premiere engagement in Ireland directed by Jimmy Fay. A third new play will be announced for the Linda Gross Theater main stage.

Atlantic Stage 2, the company's second stage, will feature the world premiere limited engagement of Oohrah!, by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Evan Cabnet. A second new play will be announced for Atlantic Stage 2.

The Atlantic's Main Stage:

A double bill of two unrelated plays by David Mamet.
Keep Your Pantheon / School (NY & world premiere respectively)

Director: Neil Pepe
Cast: TBA
Pantheon: a farce that follows the fortunes and misfortunes of an acting troupe in ancient Rome. An impoverished acting company on the edge of eviction is offered a lucrative engagement. But through a series of mishaps, the troupe finds its problems have actually multiplied, and that they are about to learn a new meaning for the term 'dying on stage.'
School: a brief comic discourse on recycling, poster design and the transmission of information.

Previews: 30 Sep 2009
Opens: 9 Sep 2009
Closes: 1 Nov 2009

David Mamet's (Playwright) staging credits include the world premieres of his plays 'Oleanna,' 'The Cryptogram,' 'Boston Marriage,' and 'Faustus,' as well as 'Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants' and 'Ricky Jay: On the Stem,' and various productions for the Atlantic Theater Company and Circle Rep. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' and has also written 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago,' 'Lakeboat,' 'The Water Engine,' 'The Duck Variations,' 'Reunion,' 'The Blue Hour,' 'The Shawl,' 'Bobby Gould in Hell,' 'Edmond,' 'Romance,' 'The Old Neighborhood 'and the recent adaptation of 'The Voysey Inheritance.' He will be represented on Broadway later this new year with the world premiere of his play 'Race.'

Neil Pepe (Director) is Atlantic Artistic Director's artistic director for which he was awarded the 2009 Drama Desk Special Award. He made his Broadway directional debut with his helmship of David Mamet's 'Speed-the-Plow' (2008 revival). Off-Broadway he has directed 'Offices,' 'Parlour Song,' 'Celebration and The Room' 'Romance,' 'Sea of Tranquility,' 'The Night Heron,' 'Blue/Orange,' 'American Buffalo,' 'Mojo,' 'Clean,' 'Shaker Heights' and 'Five Very Live' all for the Atlantic.

Ages of the Moon by Sam Shepard. (US Premiere)
Director: Jimmy Fay
Cast: TBA
Synopsis: Byron and Ames are old friends, re-united by mutual desperation. Over bourbon on ice, they sit, reflect and bicker until fifty years of love, friendship and rivalry are put to the test at the barrel of a gun.

Previews: 9 Jan 2010
Opens: 27 Jan 2010
Closes: 7 Mar 2010

Sam Shepard (Playwright) was first produced in New York in 1963 at Theatre Genesis and many times at La MaMa and Cafe Cino. Eleven of his plays have won Obie Awards including 'The Tooth of Crime' (1972) and 'Curse of the Starving Class' (1976). He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his play 'Buried Child' (1979). The critically acclaimed production of 'True West,' starring Jon Malkovich and Gary Sinise opened Off-Broadway in 1982. 'Fool For Love' (1982) starring Ed Harris received Obie Awards for Best Play and Direction. 'Simpatico' opened at The Royal Court Theatre after its New York premiere at The Public Theater in 1994 and was made into a feature film by Matthew Warchus starring Nick Nolte and Sharon Stone. A revised 'Buried Child 'under the direction of Gary Sinise opened on Broadway in 1996 and was nominated for a Tony Award.

Jimmy Fay (Director). For the past year Fay served as acting Literary Director of the Abbey Theatre where his production of 'The Resistable Rise of Aturo Ui' enjoyed a limited engagement. His productions at the Abbey Theatre include 'The Seafarer' by Conor McPherson, 'The Playboy of the Western World' in a new version by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle, 'Saved' by Edward Bond for which he won Best Director Irish Times Theatre Award 2007, 'The School for Scandal' by R B Sheridan, 'Howie the Rookie' by Mark O'Rowe, 'True West' by Sam Shepard, Shakespeare's 'Henry IV' in an edit by Mark O'Rowe and 'The Muesli Belt' by Jimmy Murphy. He is Artistic Director of Bedrock Productions. He was the first director of the Dublin Fringe Festival (1995 -1996), which he co-founded with Bedrock Productions.

Atlantic Stage Two:

Oohrah! by Bekah Brunstetter (World Premiere)
Directed by: Evan Cabnet
Cast: tba
Synopsis: In Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to one of the South's largest military bases, practically everybody has somebody 'Over There.'� Sara is relieved when her husband Ron returns home from an uneventful tour in Iraq, but he's finding it difficult to settle back into the domestic bliss that is 'home improvement'� and 'Rachel Ray's 30-minute meals.'� Sara's sister Abby has set herself up for an uneventful life with a civilian fiance who's more interested in PlayStation than the battlefield. But when a hot, mysterious Marine walks into their lives, all bets on stability are off.

Previews: 1 Sep 2009
Opens: 9 Sep 2009
Closes: 27 Sep 2009

Bekah Brunstetters (Playwright) plays include 'Be a Good Little Widow,' 'Oohrah! (Ars Nova outloud reading series, dir, Leigh Silverman; developed in London at the Finborough Theater), 'To Nineveh' (NY Innovative Theater Award for Best new full length play, 2006) 'Sick' (winner, Sam French short play festival 2006), 'Green' (finalist, Alliance Theater's Kendeda Competition; national finalist, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival) 'Space' (semi-finalist, Princess Grace Award 2007), 'I Used to Write On Walls,' 'Fat Kids On Fire,' 'You May Go Now: A Marriage Play,' (Winner, 2008 NYIT award for best new Full Length Play (Babel Theater Project).

Evan Cabnet (Director) as directed Mark Schultz's 'The Gingerbread House' (stageFARM at the Rattlestick, world premiere), Donald Margulies' 'Shipwrecked! An Entertainment' (Long Wharf Theater, East Coast premiere), Elizabeth Meriwether's 'The Mistakes Madeline Made' (Naked Angels, world premiere), new plays by Adam Rapp, Schultz, and Meriwether as part of SPIN (Cherry Lane), Lewis Black and Rusty Magee's 'The Czar of Rock and Roll' (Joe's Pub), his own adaptations of Ubu Roi and Salman Rushdie's 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories' (Williamstown), and the 2009 TFI Sloan staged readings for the Tribeca Film Festival. He is the recipient of the 2008 Claire Tow Award for Emerging Artists.

Atlantic Theater Company is the award winning Off-Broadway theater dedicated to producing great plays simply and truthfully utilizing an artistic ensemble. Atlantic believes that the story of the play and the intent of the playwright are at the core of the creative process.