Public Theatre's 2008-2009 Season

The Public Theater�s 2008-2009 Season will feature premieres by Mike Daisey, Christopher Durang, John Guare, Danny Hoch, Craig Lucas, Stephen Sondheim, and Tracey Scott Wilson. JoAnne Akalaitis will return to her former home at The Public to direct The Bacchae as the second offering of the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park summer season.

In the same theater season, George C. Wolfe will return to direct his first downtown show since his departure as Producer in 2005. (Wolfe last directed Mother Courage and Her Children in 2006 in the Park for The Public). Wolfe will direct John Guare�s first major play in seven years, A Free Man of Color, featuring Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright.

The Public�s season will open in October with the New York premiere of the Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical Bounce, directed by John Doyle.

In the spring, Craig Lucas will reteam with his 'Light in the Piazza' Director Bartlett Sher for the New York Premiere of The Singing Forest, and Christopher Durang will return to The Public with the world premiere of his dark comedy Why Torture is Wrong, And the People who Love Them.

In the fall, Hip-Hop impresario Danny Hoch will premiere his first solo show in 10 years, Taking Over, and controversial monologist Mike Daisey will premiere his latest monologue about homeland security, If You See Something Say Something.

Following a successful run at The Public�s Public LAB initiative this season, The Good Negro, by Tracey Scott Wilson, will have a full main stage production in February, directed by Liesl Tommy. The Good Negro is a co-production with Dallas Theater Center.

�Each of next season�s remarkable theater artists is working on the broadest canvas imaginable, dealing with the large issues that shape our public life. It will be a season about America -- its present and its history,� said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. �From the gentrification of Brooklyn in Danny Hoch�s Taking Over, to the Department of Homeland Security in If You See Something Say Something, from America�s transition from Republic to Empire in A Free Man of Color, to the crucible of the Civil Rights movement in The Good Negro, these artists are grappling with the heart of America.�

�I am particularly proud to welcome back to The Public my two predecessors, JoAnne Akalaitis and George C. Wolfe,� continued Eustis. �One of The Public�s great strengths is the continuity of its community of artists, and JoAnne and George are both an integral part of that community.�

2008-2009 Season

• Bounce (New York Premiere) Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
  Book by John Weidman
  Directed by John Doyle

  Spanning 40 years from the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida real estate boom in the �30s, Bounce is the story of two brothers whose quest for the American Dream turns into a test of morality and judgment that changes their lives in unexpected ways.

  
  
• If You See Something Say Something (New York Premiere) Created and performed by Mike Daisey
  Directed by Jean-Michele Gregory

  Daisey investigates the secret history of the Department of Homeland Security through the untold story of the father of the neutron bomb and a personal pilgrimage to the Trinity blast site.

  
  
• Taking Over (New York Premiere)
  Written and performed by Danny Hoch
  Directed by Tony Taccone

  Hip-Hop theater pioneer Danny Hoch chronicle the current state of gentrification of New York City. Blazing through a fierce spectrum of New Yorkers, Danny gives voice to everyone from the developers evicting locals to make way for lofts, to the bar-hopping career hipsters who buy them, and those left in the wake of both.

  
  

  A Free Man of Color (World Premiere) By John Guare
  Directed by George C. Wolfe
  Featuring Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright

  Re-creates the sexually progressive New Orleans of 1802 when the landscape of race was shifting and the Louisiana Purchase could complete America�s unfinished maps. Featuring a host of historical characters including Napoleon, Josephine, Jefferson, Talleyrand and others (you name �em, they�re in it), A Free Man of Color is a racially charged re-telling of America�s coming of age.

  
  
• The Good Negro (World Premiere)
  By Tracey Scott Wilson
  Directed by Liesl Tommy

  1960's American civil rights movement. In the increasingly hostile South, tensions build as a trio of emerging black leaders attempt to conquer their individual demons amidst death threats from the Klan and wire taps by the FBI. Through personal and intimate stories that emerged from the political upheavals of the era, The Good Negro examines a world where people dare to hope for a better future.

• Why Torture is Wrong, And the People who Love Them (World Premiere)
  By Christopher Durang

  Tells the story of a young woman suddenly in crisis: is her new husband, whom she married when drunk, a terrorist? Or just crazy? Or both? Is her father�s hobby of butterfly collecting really a cover for his involvement in a shadow government? Why does her mother enjoy going to the theatre so much? Does she seek mental escape, or is she insane?

  
  
• The Singing Forest (New York Premiere)
  By Craig Lucas
  Directed by Bartlett Sher

  Takes you on a passage through time - from today's world of Starbucks, celebrity and therapy to Freud's inner circle in 1930's Vienna and to Paris at the end of WWII. It's the story of three generations of a family whose lives are intertwined despite the secrets that have torn them apart.

  
  

  Delacorte Theater/Summer 2009

  First Park Show (To Be Announced)

• The Bacchae (Second Play of the Park Season)
  By Euripides
  Directed by JoAnne Akalaitis
  Music by Philip Glass
  Adapted by Nicholas Ruddall

  An interpretation of Euripides� classic story about what happens when a government attempts to outlaw desire.

Also Scheduled for next season at the Public Theater:

The 2008-09 Season will see the second year of Public LAB presented in association with LAByrinth Theater Company. Public LAB is designed to respond to new work immediately, and present plays that embrace the Public�s history as a theater receptive to the big issues, the public issues of our time. The program gives writers the opportunity to realize their work in collaboration with director, designers and actors through production and most importantly, to see their work in front of an audience.

The Native Theater Festival will return for a second season (1-16 Nov 2008) to provide a rare and vital outlet for Native artists.

Under the Radar will enter its fifth year (7- 18 Jan 2009), showcasing theater from around the world on the many stages of The Public.

New Work Now, the popular free readings series that showcases new works, will return in the spring to continue The Public�s commitment to new voices.

The Public Theater was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 as the Shakespeare Workshop and is now one of the nation�s preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, productions of Shakespeare, and other classics at its headquarters on Lafayette Street and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

The Public�s mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day on stage and through its extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe�s Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park.

The Public has won 40 Tony Awards, 145 Obies, 39 Drama Desk Awards, 24 Lucille Lortel Awards and 4 Pulitzer Prizes.