2ST announces 3 NY premiere for 2016-2017 season

The Second Stage Theatre Company has announced three New York premieres for its upcoming 2016-2017 off-Broadway season at the Tony Kiser Theatre.

Second Stage Theatre Artistic Director Carole Rothman commented:

"The upcoming season at Second Stage promises to do what we do best: to provoke, to challenge, and, most importantly, to entertain our audiences with unique stories and perspectives on the American experience. I am thrilled to kick off the season with the incomparable Anna Deavere Smith and her revolutionary style of playwriting and performance. Her play, Let Me Down Easy, was a highlight for everyone at Second Stage and this latest work promises to be another singular, thought-provoking experience. In 2017 we will welcome two playwrights I have long wanted to work with - Tracy Letts and Bruce Norris - both incredibly perceptive writers with two superlative works that have not yet been seen by New York audiences. And to have Leonard Foglia, David Cromer, and Michael Greif, all artists of the highest caliber, directing these plays is truly an honor."

Kicking off the company's 38th season and beginning previews on 11 October is Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, created, written and performed by and directed by Leonard Foglia. Opening night is expected in late October 2016.

Synopsis: "Anna Deavere Smith leads a new installation of powerful first person storytelling in Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education. Urgent and inspiring, it depicts the personal accounts of students, parents, teachers and administrators caught in America's school-to-prison pipeline. Investigating a justice system that pushes minors from poor communities out of the classroom and into incarceration, Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education shines a light on a lost generation of American youth. Drawn from interviews with more than 200 people living and working within a challenged system, Anna Deavere Smith continues her mastery of the documentary solo performance by stimulating awareness and ultimately, change for the better."

This is a co-production with Boston's American Repertory Theatre.

This will be followed by Tracy Letts' play Man from Nebraska, directed by David Cromer, which will play a limited engagement in winter 2017.

Synopsis: "Sometimes even the most devout can lose their faith. When Ken, a middle aged man from Nebraska, suddenly finds he's lost his, along with his sense of purpose, he goes on a wild adventure to find it. Along the way he encounters a world vastly different from his own, filled with chance meetings and romantic encounters that shake him to the core. From the playwright of August: Osage County, comes a fascinating exploration into what happens when we lose our belief system and the characters that come into our lives on the path to a meaningful existence."

Finally, 2ST will stage the New York premiere of A Parallelogram, a comedy by Bruce Norris, directed by Michael Greif. Performances will begin in summer 2017.

Synopsis: "If you knew in advance exactly what was going to happen in your life, and how everything was going to turn out, and if you knew you couldn't do anything to change it, would you still want to go on with your life? That is the question facing Bee who, much to Jay's confusion, can click through different moments in her life with the touch of a remote control. Past, present and future collide in this existential farce that questions whether we can make peace with those things we don't have the power to change."

A fourth production for the 2ST's 38th season will be announced at a later date.