Second Stage Theatre announces new season

Second Stage Theatre has announced three plays for its upcoming 32nd Season. The company's 2010-2011 season will feature the World Premiere of By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, the new comedy from Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage ('Ruined,' 'Intimate Apparel'). By The Way, Meet Vera Stark is Nottage's first play to be produced in New York since she won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Ruined' in 2009.

The season will also include the New York Premiere of Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries, directed by Tony nominee Scott Ellis. Joseph returns to Second Stage where his plays 'All This Intimacy 'and 'Animals Out of Paper' (Lortel nomination for Outstanding Play) premiered as part of the company's Uptown Series.

Arthur Kopit's 1978 drama Wings, directed by Tony Award-winner John Doyle ('Sweeney Todd,' 'Company'), will also receive a second staging as part of the upcoming season.

A fourth production is still to be announced.

The plays will be presented in the following season order:
Casting announcements and specific dates for each production will be forthcoming.

Wings
by Arthur Kopit
Directed by John Doyle
Cast: tba.
Venue: Second Stage Theatre
Date: tba (expected to start previews in Oct 2010).

Synopsis: Arthur Kopit's 1978 Tony-nominated play, Wings, is a journey through the eye of Emily Stilson, a 1920's wingwalker who discovers her life's journey is a series of courageous adventures, proving that even when her mental self fails her, her daredevil spirit proves unflappable.

Arthur Kopit is the author of the plays: Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and 'I'm Feelin' So Sad; Indians (finalist for Pulitzer Prize); End of the World with Symposium to Follow; a new translation of Ibsen's Ghosts; the book for the musical Phantom and Nine (both with scores by Maury Yeston); Road to Nirvana; the book for the musical High Society; Because He Can (originally entitled Y2K); Chad Curtiss, Lost Again; and numerous one-act plays.

John Doyle received won a Tony Award as Outstanding Director of a Musical for his Broadway debut, 'Sweeney Todd.' He also directed the recent Broadway productions of 'Company' (Tony for Best Musical Revival) and 'A Catered Affair.' He won UK Best Musical Awards for 'The Gondolier's (West End), 'Fiddler on the Roof' and 'Moll Flanders' with nominations for four other productions including 'Mack and Mabel' (also West End). John has been artistic director of four UK regional theatres and has directed numerous new and classic plays, most recently 'Amadeus' (Wilton's Music Hall).

New York premiere
Gruesome Playground Injuries
By Rajiv Joseph
Director: Scott Ellis
Cast: tba Venue: Second Stage Theatre
Dates: tba (expected to start previews in Jan 2011)

Synopsis: Over the course of 30 years, the lives of Kayleen and Doug intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together.

Rajiv Joseph returns to Second Stage Theatre where his plays 'Animals Out of Paper' (Lortel nomination for Outstanding Play) and 'All This Intimacy' premiered as part of the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series. Joseph is also one of Second Stage's Time Warner Commissioned Playwrights and participated in the company's New Works Festival in 2008. His play, 'Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,' was produced by L.A.'s Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre during the 2008-09 season and was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. Joseph's other productions in New York: 'The Leopard and the Fox ,' 'Alter Ego,' 'Huck & Holden'.

Scott Ellis returns to Second Stage Theatre where he recently directed Douglas Carter Beane's 'Mr. & Mrs. Fitch' and 'The Little Dog Laughed.' Other Second Stage credits include 'Good Boys and True,' 'The Waverly Gallery' with Eileen Heckert, and 'That Championship Season.' Broadway credits include 'Curtains,' 'Twelve Angry Men' (Tony nomination), Arthur Miller's 'The Man Who Had All the Luck' with Chris O'Donnell, 'The Boys From Syracuse,' 'The Rainmaker 'with Woody Harrelson and Jayne Atkinson, '1776' (Tony nomination), 'Picnic,' 'Company,' 'A Month in the Country' with Helen Mirren, 'Steel Pier' (Tony nomination), 'She Loves Me' (Tony nomination and Olivier Award for Best Director and Best Revival, London production). Off-Broadway: 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane' with Alec Baldwin,' 'Dark Rapture,' 'And the World Goes' Round: The Songs of Kander & Ebb,' among others.

World premiere
By The Way, Meet Vera Stark
by Lynn Nottage
Director: tba
Cast: tba Venue: Second Stage Theatre
Dates: tba (expected to start previews in Apr 2011)

Synopsis: A seventy year journey into the life of Vera Stark, a headstrong African-American maid and budding actress, and her tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold on to her career. When circumstances collide and both women land roles in the same Southern epic, the story behind the cameras leaves Vera with a controversial legacy scholars will debate for years to come.

Lynn Nottage'S relationship with Second Stage Theatre dates back to 1995, when the company commissioned and produced Nottage's breakthrough work, 'Crumbs From The Table of Joy,' which has since had over 30 productions around the country. Nottage is also one of Second Stage Theatre's Time Warner Commissioned Playwrights and participated in the company's New Works Festival in 2008. Her other plays include the Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Ruined,' which is currently being produced in London's West End; 'Intimate Apparel'; 'A Walk Through Time' (a children's musical); 'Mud, River, Stone '; 'Por'knockers'; 'Poof!' and 'Las Meninas'.'