LCT3 announce 2013/14 season

LCT3 has announced three shows for its upcoming Season. The company's 2013-2014 season will feature the world premiere of JC Lee's Luce, the world premiere of Stop Hitting Yourself created by Rude Mechs, and the New York premiere of 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Ayad Akhtar's The Who and The What.

In addition LCT3's Special Event series will continue this summer with the return engagement of Young Jean Lee's Theater Company's We're Gonna Die, written and performed by Young Jean Lee, with music by Future Wife, choreography by Faye Driscoll and direction by Paul Lazar, also in the Claire Tow Theater.

Casting announcements and, ticket and scheduling information for each production will be forthcoming.

The plays will be presented in the following season order at the Claire Tow Theater:

We're Gonna Die
Writter: Young Jean Lee
Music: Future Wife
Director: Paul Lazar
Choreography: Faye Driscoll
Cast: Young Jean Lee.
Previews: 05 Aug 2013
Opening: 05 Aug 2013
Closing: 17 Aug 2013

Synopsis: Young Jean Lee takes the stage with her band Future Wife in a life-affirming show about the thing everyone has in common: death.

Young Jean Lee, who is currently under commission to create a new piece for LCT3, is a two-time Obie Award-winning playwright and director who has been called "the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation" by the New York Times. She has written and directed nine shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, and toured her work to over twenty cities around the world. Her plays have been published by Theatre Communications Group (Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays, The Shipment and Lear) and by Samuel French (Three Plays by Young Jean Lee).

World premiere
Luce
By JC Lee
Director: May Adrales
Cast: tba Previews: 05 Oct 2013
Opening: 21 Oct 2013
Closing: 17 Nov 2013

Synopsis: When a teacher makes a damaging discovery about Luce, an all-star high school student, Luce's parents are forced to reckon with their idealized image of their son, adopted years ago from a war-torn African country.

Luce marks JC Lee's professional playwriting debut. He is is a recent graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwriting Program at the Juilliard School and was a 2011-12 writing fellow at The Playwrights Realm. His plays have been in various stages of development throughout the United States at such theaters as South Coast Rep, the Magic Theatre, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

May Adrales' Off-Broadway credits include David Henry Hwang's 'The Dance and the Railroad' at the Signature Theatre Company and Lauren Yee's 'Chino Chong Chinaman' at Pan Asian Rep. Her production of 'Bereaved' was named one of 2009's "Ten Best of the Year" by Time Out/NY and she has also directed in New York at the Public Theater, Second Stage, New York Theater Workshop and Primary Stages. Her regional theater credits include productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Syracuse Stage and the Cleveland Playhouse.

Luce will have sets by Timothy R. Mackabee, costumes by Kaye Voyce, lighting by Tyler Micoleau and sound by Jill BC Du Boff.

World premiere
Stop Hitting Yourself
Created by Rude Mechs
Cast: tba
Previews: 13 Jan 2014
Opening: 27 Jan 2014
Closing: 23 Feb 2014

Synopsis: Part Pygmalion, part Busby Berkley, part self-help lexicon - borrows from the plots of 1930's musicals to dig deep into the contemporary conservative dilemma: how to honor steely individualism without disavowing the virtue of charity - all the while tap-dancing around a queso fountain.

An ensemble-based theater collective, Rude Mechs has created "a mercurial slate of original theatrical productions that represent a genre-defying cocktail of big ideas, cheap laughs, and dizzying spectacle." They perform their productions at their home base in Austin, Texas, as well as nationally and internationally. Rude Mechs productions seen previously Off-Broadway include 'Dionysus in 69' and 'Method Gun.'

New York premiere
The Who and The What
By Ayad Akhtar
Director: Kimberly Senior
Cast: tba
Previews: 31 May 2014
Opening: 16 Jun 2014
Closing: 13 Jul 2014

Synopsis: An examination of the chasm between our traditions and our contemporary lives: tells the story of Zarina, an outspoken and brilliant writer, who clashes with her traditional father and sister over her book about women and Islam, a work that threatens to tear her family apart for good.

Ayad Akhtar won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play 'Disgraced,' which enjoyed an extended run when it was produced by LCT3 last season. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel 'American Dervish' and the play 'The Invisible Hand.' He co-authored and starred in the film "The War Within," which was released internationally, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screen play. As an actor, he starred in HBO's adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin's 'Too Big To Fail.'

Kimberly Senior directed 'Disgraced' last season at LCT3, as well as the play's world premiere at Chicago's American Theater Company. She is a Chicago-based director whose credits include productions at Steppenwolf, Strawdog, American Blues and Next Theatres. She is an Artistic Associate at Next Theatre, Strawdog Theatre, and Chicago Dramatists.

The Who and The What will have sets by Jack Magaw, costumes by Emily Rebholz, lighting by Japhy Weideman and sound by Jill BC Du Boff.

Ayad AkhtarJ.C. LeeYoung Jean Lee