Playwrights Horizons: 2017-2018 Season announced

Playwrights Horizons has announced six new productions for the company's 2017-2018 off-Broadway season, which will present five world premieresa and a New York premiere. The plays will be presented in the following season order:

AT THE MAINSTAGE THEATER:

The 2017-2018 begins on August 18, 2017 with the New York premiere of a For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday, written by two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony nominee Sarah Ruhl and directed by Obie Award winner Les Waters.

Synopsis: "Playing Peter Pan at her hometown children's theater is one of Ann's fondest, most formative memories. Now, fifty years later, Neverland calls again, casting her and her siblings back to this faraway dreamscape where the refusal to grow up confronts the inevitability of growing old. In her highly anticipated return to Playwrights, Sarah Ruhl conjures a tender, yearning tale that flies in the face of time, in the search for a second youth."

The cast of For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday includes Tony nominee Kathleen Chalfant (as Ann), alongside David Chandler, Ron Crawford, Lisa Emery, Tony nominee Daniel Jenkins and Keith Reddin.

The world premiere of For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday was staged at "The 2016 Humana Festival of New American Plays" at Actors Theatre of Louisville, KY, in March 2016, and was subsequently staged at Berkeley Repertory Company in May 2016.

The second production of the season at the Mainstage Theater will be the world premiere of Mankind, a new comedy written and directed by two-time Obie Award winner Robert O'Hara, which is expected to begin performances in December 2017.

Synopsis: "Mark and Jason were keeping things casual until Jason got pregnant. But however unplanned the pregnancy was, nothing could be less expected than the chain of events it would set in motion. Robert O'Hara's audacious, hilarious allegory envisions an uncannily familiar future - one long after women have gone extinct from centuries of mistreatment - where man's capacity to f**k everything up soars to new heights."

Next up will be the world premiere of Lindsey Ferrentino's This Flat Earth, directed by Rebecca Taichman, which is expected to begin performances in March 2018.

Synopsis: "At a middle school in this seaside town, the unthinkable has happened, placing a bewildered community in the national spotlight. Stuck at home in a state of shocked limbo, Julie and Zander, two thirteen-year-olds, try to make sense of the chaos they witnessed, their awkward crushes and an infinitely more complicated future - but the grown-ups are no help at all. An urgent response to our times, This Flat Earth is a startling and deeply felt story of growing up in our confounding world."

Finally at Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theater will be the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize finalist Jordan Harrison's new comedy Log Cabin, directed by Tony winner Pam MacKinnon, which is scheduled to begin performances in June 2018.

Synopsis: "It's a faraway age of hope and inclusivity; in other words, it's 2015. When a tight-knit circle of married gays and lesbians - comfy in the new mainstream - see themselves through the eyes of their rakish transgender pal, it's clear that the march toward progress is anything but unified. With stinging satire and acute compassion, Jordan Harrison's pointed comedy charts the breakdown of empathy that happens when we think our rights are secure, revealing conservative hearts where you'd least expect."

AT THE PETER JAY SHARP THEATER:

The 2017-2018 season kicks off at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater with the world premiere of Max Posner's dark comedy The Treasurer, directed by three-time Lortel Award winner David Cromer, which will begin performances in September 2017.

Synopsis: "Ida Armstrong is broke, lonely and fading fast. And she's spending all of her children's money, forcing her son to assume the unwanted role of The Treasurer: an arrangement that becomes untenable the more he questions his devotion to her. In this darkly funny, sharply intimate portrait, Max Posner chronicles the strained ties between a son and his aging mother, and the hell of a guilty conscience."

Finishing off the season at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater will be the world premiere of Obie Award winner Clare Barron's new comedy Dance Nation, directed by Obie Award winner Lee Sunday Evans, which is expected to begin performances in April 2018.

Synopsis: "Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they'll claw their way to the top at the Boogie Down Grand Prix in Tampa Bay. But in Clare Barron's raucous pageant of ambition and ferocity, these young dancers have more than choreography on their minds, because every plié and jeté is a step toward finding themselves, and a fight to unleash their power."

Exact dates, along with casting and creative team information for all six productions will be announced in the coming months.