Playwrights Horizons: 2014 - 2015 Season

Playwrights Horizons has announced the complete line-up for its 2014/2015 Season, which will present four world premieres: Grand Concourse by Heidi Schreck, directed by Kip Fagan; Pocatello by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Davis McCallum; Placebo by Melissa James Gibson, directed by Daniel Aukin; and the musical Iowa, book by Jenny Schwartz, music and lyrics by Todd Almons, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. Along with a New York Premiere: Bootycandy written and directed by Robert O'Hara.
The 2014-15 season will conclude with a new play by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Bruce Norris, to be announced.

The plays will be presented in the following season order:

New York Premiere
Bootycandy
Written and directed by Robert O'Hara
Cast: tba
Venue: Playwrights Horizons' Main Stage
Date: Will begin previews on Friday 22 Aug 2014.

Synopsis: Sutter is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms and even nursing homes. A kaleidoscope of sketches that interconnect to portray growing up gay and black, Robert O'Hara's satire crashes headlong into the murky terrain of pain and pleasure and... BOOTYCANDY.

Bootycandy had its World Premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington DC.

Robert O'Hara (Playwright & Director) received an Obie Award for his Direction of In the Continuum (Primary Stage/Perry Street Theater). Other directing credits include Wild with Happy (The Public) The Mountaintop (Alley Theatre, Arena Stage), Tough Titty (Magic Theater), Brother/Sister Plays (co-production at McCarter Theater/ New York Shakespeare), Brother Size (City Theater) and Slavey (Clubbed Thumb). His play Antebellum received a World Premiere production from Woolly Mammoth Theater Company and he rewrote The Wiz (revival at LaJolla Playhouse). He wrote and directed the World Premiere of Insurrection: Holding History (NYSF/Public Theater, Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play, published by TCG and Dramatist Play Service).

World Premiere
Grand Concourse
by Heidi Schreck
Directed by Kip Fagan
Venue: Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Dates: beginning October 2014

Synopsis: Called to a life of religious service, Shelly is the devoted manager of a Bronx soup kitchen, but lately her heart's not quite in it. Enter Emma: an idealistic teenaged volunteer with mixed intentions, whose recklessness pushes Shelley to the breaking point. Heidi Schreck's play navigates the mystery of faith, the limit of forgiveness, and the pursuit of something resembling joy.

Heidi Schreck (Playwright) is an actor and playwright living in Brooklyn. As a playwright her work has been produced or developed by Page 73, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, New Georges, MTC, Soho Rep, The Civilians, Printer's Devil Theatre, On the Boards, and National Public Radio. Her play Creature was produced by Page 73 and New Georges in 2009, directed by Leigh Silverman and is published by Samuel French. There Are No More Big Secrets was performed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in 2010 (New York Magazine and Time Out-NY critic's pick).Long Wharf Theatre premiered her new play The Consultant, directed by Kip Fagan in January 2014. Heidi is Playwrights Horizons' first Tow Foundation playwright in residence.

Kip Fagan (Director). most recently directed the World Premiere of Heidi Schreck's The Consultant at Long Wharf Theatre. Upcoming: Bull Durham, a new musical at The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, GA. At the Rattlestick Theatre in NYC: The Revisionist with Vanessa Redgrave and Asuncion, both plays written by and starring Jesse Eisenberg, There Are No More Big Secrets by Heidi Schreck, How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them by Halley Feiffer, That Pretty Pretty by Sheila Callaghan. Other NYC Credits: Jack's Precious Moment by Samuel D. Hunter, Reborning by Zayd Dohrn, Cipher by Cory Hinkel, Recess and Roadkill Confidential by Sheila Callaghan, The Young Left by Greg Keller, Nelson by Sam Marks and the premiere of Christopher Durang's Not a Creature Was Stirring.

World Premiere
Pocatello
by Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Davis McCallum
Venue: Playwrights Horizons' Main Stage
Dates: beginning November 2014

Synopsis: Eddie manages an Italian chain restaurant in Pocatello—a small, unexceptional American city that is slowly being paved over with strip malls and franchises. But he can't serve enough Soup, Salad and Breadstick Specials to make his hometown feel like home. Against the harsh backdrop of Samuel D. Hunter's Idaho, this new comedy is a cry for connection in an increasingly lonely American landscape.

Samuel D. Hunter's (Playwright) recent plays include 'A Bright New Boise' (2011 Obie Award for playwriting), The Whale (Playwrights Horizons), 'A Permanent Image' (commissioned and produced by Boise Contemporary Theater), 'Jack's Precious Moment' (Page 73 Productions), 'Five Genocides' (Clubbed Thumb), 'Norway' (Phoenix Theatre of Indianapolis; Boise Contemporary Theater), 'I Am Montana' (Arcola Theatre, London; Mortar Theater, Chicago).

Davis McCallum (Director) recently directed the world premiere of Samuel D. Hunter's 'The Whale' at Playwrights Horizons and Quiara Alegria Hudes's 'Water By the Spoonful' at Hartford Stage Company. Other credits include: New York: Samuel D. Hunter's 'A Bright New Boise' (Partial Comfort) and 'Five Genocides' (Clubbed Thumb); Michael Mitnick's 'Sex Lives of Our Parent's (Second Stage); Gregory S. Moss's 'punkplay' (Clubbed Thumb); Charles Mee's 'Queens Boulevard' (Signature Theater); Hudes's Elliot: 'A Soldier's Fugue' (P73); 'Henry V' (New Victory); 'Jane Eyre,' 'The Tempest' and 'The Turn Of The Screw' (The Acting Company).

World Premiere
Placebo
by Melissa James Gibson
Directed by Daniel Aukin
Venue: Playwrights Horizons' Main Stage
Dates: beginning Feb 2015

Synopsis: A minty green pill—medication or sugar? Louise is working on a placebo-controlled study of a new female arousal drug. As her work in the lab navigates the blurry lines between perception and deception, more and more these same questions pertain to her life at home. Melissa James Gibson's comedy examines slippery truths and the power of crossed fingers.

Melissa James Gibson's(Playwright) returns to Playwrights Horizons for the first time since This is 2009. Her other plays include What Rhymes with America (Atlantic Theatre Company); Suitcase or, those that resemble flies from a distance(NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, Rockefeller Foundation's Multi-Arts Production Fund); Brooklyn Bridge, with a song by Barbara Brousal; All Is Not (New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Artist Commission); and Current Nobody, a loose adaptation of Homer's Odyssey.

Daniel Aukin (Director) most recently directed Bad Jews at Roundabout Theatre Company. Other recent New York credits include Melissa James Gibson's What Rhymes with America (Atlantic Theater Company) and This (Playwrights Horizons), Sam Shepard's Heartless (Signature), Amy Herzog's 4,000 Miles (Lincoln Center), and Itamar Moses' Back Back Back (Manhattan Theatre Club). Other credits include A View from the Bridge at Arena Stage, Melissa James Gibson's Current Nobody at Woolly Mammoth and Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine at La Jolla Playhouse, as well as a workshop of Rachel Axler's new play Smudge at the Eugene O'Neill Conference.

World Premiere
Iowa
By Jenny Schwartz
Music and lyrics by Todd Almond
Directed by Leigh Silverman
Venue: Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Dates: beginning March 2015

Synopsis: Mom found her soul-mate on Facebook, and he lives in Iowa. So Becca says goodbye to her beloved math teacher, bulimic best friend, neighborhood pony and her mildly deficient teenage life, and she follows her wayward mother to a new, uncharted beginning. But in this musical play from the imagination of Jenny Schwartz and Todd Almond nothing can prepare them for what they'll find.

Jenny Schwartz (Playwright) plays include God's Ear, Somewhere Fun, Cause for Alarm and 41-derful. 41-derful will premiere in Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks 2014. Somewhere Fun premiered last season at the Vineyard Theatre. God's Ear was produced in New York by New Georges and the Vineyard Theatre. God's Ear has been produced nationally and internationally from Lisbon, Portugal to Boise, Idaho to Sydney, Australia.

Todd Almond is a composer, lyricist and playwright. He most recently wrote the music for, and is currently performing in, Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss at Playwrights Horizons. Todd also recently collaborated with director Lear deBessonet on an adaptation of The Tempest at the Delacorte Theatre for the Public Theater's Public Works program; Todd wrote music and lyrics, and played "Ariel" in this production, which featured a cast of 200 people, and received rave reviews. Todd's musicals include the book of Girlfriend (using new arrangements of Matthew Sweet's eponymous cult album); a musical version of Sarah Ruhl's Melancholy Play with 13P; music and lyrics for We Have Always Lived In The Castle (adapted from the Shirley Jackson novel); On The Levee with Marcus Gardley and Lear deBessonet at LCT3; and his own musical adaptation of The Odyssey. Ken Rus Schmoll's (Director) previous work with Jenny Schwartz includes directing her play Cause for Alarm in the NY Fringe Festival. Other credits include TheGrown-Up, Death Tax (Humana Festival); Grounded (Page 73); Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave); Red DogHowls (New York Theatre Workshop); Luther, Telethon, Amazons and Their Men, Demon Baby (Clubbed Thumb); The Peripherals (The Talking Band); A Map of Virtue, Mark Smith, Aphrodisiac, The Internationalist (13P); SevenHomeless Mammoths Wander New England (Two River Theater); FUREE in Pins and Needles, Telephone (Foundry Theatre); Middletown, The Internationalist (Vineyard Theatre); What Once We Felt (LCT3); October/November (EST Marathon); Hello Failure (PS 122); Millicent Scowlworthy, Honor and the River (SPF); and Aphrodisiac (Long Wharf).

World Premiere
A new play, to be announced By Bruce Norris
Venue: Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theatre
Dates: beginning May 2015

Bruce Norris (Playwright) is the author of Clybourne Park, which had its World Premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2010. It won the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Play, 2010, the Tony Award for Best Play, 2011, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2011. Other plays include The Infidel (2000), Purple Heart (2002), We All Went Down to Amsterdam (2003), The Pain and the Itch (2004), The Unmentionables (2006) and A Parallelogram (2010), all of which had their premieres at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. The Pain and the Itch had its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2006. His most recent play, Domesticated, had its premiere at Lincoln Center Theater in 2013. His work has also been seen at The Royal Court (London), Woolly Mammoth Theatre (Washington, DC), Lookingglass Theatre (Chicago), Philadelphia Theatre Company and Staatstheater Mainz (Germany), among others.