The Illusion to be produced by Signature

Signature Theatre Company has announced the the final production for their 20th Anniversary 2010-2011 Season, celebrating the work of Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winner 'Tony Kushner.'

Joining the previously announced first New York Revival of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Part One: Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Perestroika, and the New York premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures will be The Illusion, Kushner's freely adapted version of Pierre Corneille's L'Illusion Comique, directed by Tony Award-winner Michael Mayer.

The season will also include the Tony Kushner Reading Series, which will feature readings of selected other plays from Tony Kushner's body of work. Plays under consideration include A Bright Room Called Day; Tiny Kushner (A New Collection Of One Acts); It'S An Undoing World, Or Why Should It Be Easy When It Can Be Hard?; The Henry Box Brown Play; Hydriotaphia, Or The Death Of Dr. Browne and Homebody/Kabul.

The Illusion will be presented in Spring, 2011 at the Peter Norton Space. Dates and casting will be announced at a later date.

A lawyer, facing mortality, desperate to find the son he drove away years before, travels in the dead of night to a mysterious cave. There he engages the services of a wizard, who conjures up visions of the romantic, adventurous, perilous life the lawyer's son has been living since his father expelled him from home. The Illusion, freely adapted from Pierre Corneille's L'Illusion Comique, a wildly entertaining tale of passion and regret, of love, disillusionment and magic.

Tony Kushner said, "I feel that there's no better way to conclude my season at the Signature than with The Illusion. And I feel that there's something appropriate and magical in this play being the final play performed on the Norton stage, on which I've seen, over the years, so much unforgettable, soul-stirring and soul-transforming theater."

Michael Mayer commented, "Tony is not only one of my dearest friends, but he is also probably the most significant artistic influence in my life and work, so I'm honored to be included in his Signature season. Having long admired the high quality of the work at the Signature Theatre, I'm tremendously excited to direct The Illusion, which is a deeply funny and moving celebration of love in all its complexity. It is also a gorgeous valentine to the theatre."

James Houghton (Signature's Founding Artistic Director) James Houghton said, "Tony's adaptation of The Illusion is a raucous and playfully theatrical piece - an evening of enchantment. It fits in beautifully with the rest of our Kushner season, showing the full spectrum of what Tony believes the theatre can do, with everyday lives coexisting alongside fantastical and cosmic elements. We're delighted to have Tony's long-time collaborator, the inventive and innovative Michael Mayer, directing The Illusion. With the additional readings from Tony's body of work also joining the season's line-up, we are thrilled to take our audiences from Tony's earliest work through his very latest."

Tony Kushner's (Playwright) plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Angels In America, Parts One and Two; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. His adaptations include Corneille's 'The Illusion,' S.Y. Ansky's 'The Dybbuk,' and Brecht's 'The Good Person of Sezuan' and 'Mother Courage and Her Children' (Public Theater). Kushner's films include "Angels In America," and "Munich." Kushner has received the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award, an Oscar nomination, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Olivier Award, two Evening Standard Awards, and is the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.

Michael Mayer (Director) is currently represented on Broadway with Green Day's 'American Idiot.' He received the 2007 Tony Award for the Tony Award-winning Best Musical 'Spring Awakening,' which he also directed in London, Vienna, Tokyo, and Seoul. His other Broadway credits include 'Side Man,' Tony winner for Best Play; Thoroughly Modern Millie, Tony winner for Best Musical; A View From The Bridge, Tony winner for Best Revival; After the Fall; You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown; and Triumph of Love. He directed the films 'A Home at the End of the World' and 'Flicka.'