LCT3: Lincoln Center to present 'Graceland' and 'On The Levee'

LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater's new programming initiative devoted to producing the work of new artists and developing new audiences, has announced the remaining two productions of its 2009-2010 season.

The productions are the New York premiere of Graceland, a new play by Ellen Fairey, directed by Henry Wishcamper and the world premiere of On The Levee, a musical play conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet with book by Marcus Gardley and music and lyrics by Todd Almond.

Both productions will be presented at The Duke on 42nd Street, a New 42nd Street project, where LCT3's first production of the season, the world premiere of Ann Marie Healy's What Once We Felt, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, is currently in previews, opening on 9 Nov and running through to 21 Nov 2009.

Graceland opens at the Duke On 42nd Street on 17 May 2010, following previews from 3 May and runs through to 29 May 2010. It is a ccomic-dram about two estranged siblings who are reunited when they try to make sense of their father's recent suicide.

Playwright Ellen Fairey will make her New York playwrighting debut with Graceland. Her first play, 'Girl 20' was named one of the 10 Best Plays of 2006 by Chicago Tribune theatre critic Chris Jones and was nominated for two LA Weekly theatre awards.

Graceland premiered earlier this year at Chicago's Profiles Theatre. Director Henry Wishcamper helmed Conor McPherson's 'Port Authority' at the Atlantic Theater Company and 'The Seafarer' at Hartford TheaterWorks, Horton Foote's 'Talking Pictures' at the Goodman Theatre and the NY premiere of Jane Martin's 'Flags' at 59E59 Theatres.

On The Levee opens at the Duke On 42nd Street on 28 Jun 2010, following previews from 14 Jun and runs through to 10 Jul 2010. The show is based on a true story and is set in 1927 in Greenville, Mississippi on a levee during an almost forgotten flood.

Conceiver-Director Lear deBessonet's productions include a site-specific 'Don Quixote' in collaboration with playwright Lucy Thurber in Philadelphia, Brecht's 'Saint Joan of the Stockyards' at PS 122, 'transfigures' (Women's Project) and productions at the HERE Arts Center, NY Fringe and NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing.

Marcus Gardley (Book) is a playwright-poet who received a 2008 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwright and the 2007 Kesselring Honoree Award. His plays include 'Love is a Dream House in Lorin' (Shotgun Players, Berkeley, CA.), 'dance of the holy ghost' (Yale Rep), '(L)imitations of Life' (Empty Space Theatre) and 'like sun fallin' in the mouth' (National Black Theatre Festival).

Todd Almond (Music and Lyrics) is a composer, lyricist and performer whose musicals include 'People Like Us' (NY Musical Theatre Festival), 'Girlfriend' (Berkeley Rep), 'Ahraihsak' (Theatre Mitu) and the upcoming 'We Have Always Lived In The Castle' (Yale Rep), His songs have been performed by such theatre performers as Victoria Clark, Cheyenne Jackson, Jayne Houdyshell, Laura Benanti and Stephen Pasquale.

Casting and creative team for Graceland and On The Levee will be announced later.

Citing the need to develop strong relationships with a new generation of artists, and recognizing the frustrations that young playwrights have with the current system of readings and workshops, Lincoln Center Theater created LCT3 to offer new artists fully staged productions. All tickets to LCT3 productions are priced at an affordable $20.

Lincoln Center Theater's long term plans for LCT3 call for the creation of a permanent venue to present the work of these artists; to that end a 99-seat theater will be built in or near Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Paige Evans is the Director of LCT3.

In celebration of its 25th Year, Lincoln Center Theatre is presenting a season of entirely new work, all New York, American or World Premieres. In addition to What Once We Felt, Graceland and On The Levee LCT's 2009-2010 season will include Nathan Louis Jackson's Broke-ology (currently running at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through to 22 Nov 2009), which marks the playwright's New York debut, Sarah Ruhl's In The Next Room or the vibrator play (currently in previews on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre where it will open on 19 Nov), which will mark the playwright's Broadway debut, the American premiere of Andrew Bovell's When The Rain Stops Falling and the world premiere of A.R. Gurney's The Grand Manner.

In addition, LCT's Tony Award winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific continues its run at the Lincoln's Vivian Beaumont Theater.