Primary Stages 2007 - 2008 season presents one world premiere and three NY Premieres

Primary Stages 2007 - 2008 season of four productions, at 59E59's Theater A, include one world premiere and three New York premieres. The season features plays by Michael Hollinger, Horton Foote, Brooke Berman, and Willy Holtzman.

Opus by Michael Hollinger. (New York premiere)

Director: Terry Nolan
Cast: TBA
Synopsis: A world-renowned string quartet struggles to prepare for their highest-profile performance when the violist, and founder of the quartet, mysteriously disappears. When a young woman is hired as the replacement, her musical gifts inspire the musicians, and they decide on short notice to abandon their friendly Pachelbel Canon program and to replace it with Beethoven's difficult Opus 131. The rehearsal room becomes a pressure cooker as passions rise, personalities clash, and the musicians are forced to tackle the ephemeral nature of their life's work.

Previews: 24 Jul 2007
Opens: 07 Aug 2007
Closes: 01 Sep 2007

Michael Hollinger's (Playwright) "An Empty Plate in the Caf� du Grand Boeuf" had its New York premiere with Primary Stages. His plays include: Red Herring; Incorruptible; Tiny Island; and Tooth and Claw, all of which premiered at the Arden under the direction of Terry Nolen.

Terry Nolan (Director) is the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia and has produced over 106 productions and directed over 49 plays and musicals. He has been nominated for 16 Barrymore Awards and received the 2006 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for 'Winesburg, Oh' and Outstanding Direction of a Play for 'Opus', the 2005 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for 'Sweeney Todd' and the 2001 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of Musical for 'The Baker�s Wife.'

Dividing the Estate by Horton Foote (New York premiere)

Director: Michael Wilson
Cast: TBA
Synopsis: About a family that must confront its past as it prepares for its future with foxy cunning and hypocritical virtue.

Previews: 18 Sep 2007
Opens: 2 Oct 2007
Closes: 27 Oct 2007

Horton Foote (Playwright) had his first play, Texas Town, produced Off-Broadway in 1941. Since then he has had plays produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway and at many regional theatres. His many plays include: The Last of the Thorntons; Young Man From Atlanta; The Chase; The Traveling Lady; Night Seasons. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his play, The Young Man From Atlanta, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. In 1996 he was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Michael Wilson (Director) returns to Primary Stages where he directed Horton Foote's The Day Emily Married. Broadway credits include: Enchanted April and the upcoming Old Acquaintance (Roundabout Theatre Company). Off-Broadway he has directed Chris Shinn�s What Didn�t Happen, Eve Ensler�s Necessary Targets, Tennessee Williams�s The Red Devil Battery Sign, Jane Anderson�s Defying Gravity, and Horton Foote's The Carpetbagger�s Children (Lincoln Center Theater).

Hunting and Gathering by Brooke Berman (World Premiere)

Director: Leigh Silverman
Cast: TBA
Synopsis: Focuses on four interconnected New Yorkers, absorbed by the universe of Craig's List, laptops, and Scandinavian furniture, who seek a home in a world of temporary sublets, couch-surfing and unstable love.

Previews: 22 Jan 2008
Opens: 5 Feb 2008
Closes: 1 Mar 2008

Brooke Berman (Playwright) is a resident playwright of New Dramatists, where she serves on the Board of Directors, a member of PEN, the Dramatists Guild, the Primary Stages New American Playwrights Lab, the MCC Playwrights Coalition, and spent five years as the Director of the Playwrights Lab for the MCC Youth Company where she taught playwriting to New York City public high school students.

Leigh Silverman (Director)Broadway credits include Lisa Kron's Well. Off-Broadway: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre); Oedipus At Palm Springs (world premiere, New York Theatre Workshop); Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons); The Treatment (world premiere, The Culture Project); Jump/Cut (world premiere, Woolly Mammoth Theatre/Theater J and Women's Project) and Finder's Fee (world premiere, Rattlestick Theater).

Something You Did by Willy Holtzman (New York Premiere)

Director: TBA
Cast: TBA
Synopsis: Tells the story of a notorious sixties radical who has served nearly 30 years in prison for her part in the accidental killing of a police officer during an explosive war protest. Now eligible for parole in a post 9/11 world where bombing is terrorism and dissent, treason, how much can she be faulted for having too much consciousness and bringing the war home?

Previews: 18 Mar 2008
Opens: 1 Apr 2008
Closes: 26 Apr 2008

Willy Holtzman (Playwright) plays include: Something You Did; Sabina; Hearts; Bovver Boys; The Closer; Inside Out; San Antonio Sunset. He received the HBO Award at the O�Neill National Playwrights Conference. Holtzman is a proud board member of New Dramatists.

Primary Stages, the resident company at 59E59 Theaters, was founded in 1984 as a New York State nonprofit theatre company with the mission of producing new plays and nurturing the development of playwrights. Primary Stages has contributed to the non-profit theatre community by producing 22 seasons and over 90 productions. By fostering an environment where writers are encouraged to explore the scope of their creative vision, Primary Stages has been instrumental in developing the skills of hundreds of young artists as well as helping to create a library of new works for the American theatre.

The company has given life to many new plays (many of them world premieres) by such writers as Charles Busch, Constance Congdon, A. R. Gurney, Willy Holtzman, David Ives, Julia Jordan, Gen LeRoy, Romulus Linney, Donald Margulies, Melissa Manchester, Terrence McNally, Conor McPherson, Lanie Robertson, John Patrick Shanley, and Mac Wellman.

Over the years the company has received more than 20 theatre and literary awards, including the Lucille Lortel, the Obie, the Outer Critics Circle, several Drama Desk nominations and three AUDELCO Awards. The Stendhal Syndrome; No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs; One Million Butterflies; Boy; Indian Blood; Sabina; and In The Continuum (currently on national tour) are among the many plays that received their world premieres at Primary Stages.