The Public Theater announces lineup for 2007 - 08 season

The Public Theater has announced the lineup for its 2007 - 08 season which will present four world premieres, two US premieres and one New York premiere.

Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis said, �This season reflects the scope of The Public�s mission: new work from our most celebrated writers, exciting new plays by writers just bursting into life, collaborations with groundbreaking experimental ensembles, world-class Shakespeare, world premieres, and intimate stages filled with our country�s greatest actors. It�s a season as vital and diverse as New York.�

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard returns to The Public to direct the U.S. premiere of Kicking a Dead Horse, a new play about the myth of the West, featuring Stephen Rea.

Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang returns this fall with Yellow Face, a world premiere production developed with the Center Theatre Group. Directed by Leigh Silverman, Yellow Face is a new satire about ethnicity and cultural identity.

This winter, Obie Award winner Caryl Churchill brings to The Public the U.S. premiere of Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, a new play staged in collaboration with The Royal Court Theatre.

The Public will also stage the world premiere of Tony Award winner Richard Nelson�s new history play, Conversations in Tusculum, featuring Brian Dennehy, David Strathairn, and Maria Tucci. Set outside of Rome in the villas and hillsides of Tusculum, the play chronicles those entangled in Julius Caesar�s world of manipulation and power.

In addition to new works by these established playwrights, the 2007-08 season will continue to build upon The Public�s historic role as a home for independent and experimental artists. The Wooster Group will make its Public Theater debut with its production of Hamlet, an inventive take on Shakespeare�s best-known tragedy. In development since 2005, Hamlet will officially open at The Public this season.

Reuniting the writer/director team behind 'The Last Days of Judas Iscariot' and 'Jesus Hopped the A Train', The Public Theater will co-produce with LAByrinth Theater Company Stephen Adly Guirgis� new play Little Flower of East Orange, directed by Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. LAByrinth Theater Company now entering its fifth season of residency at The Public.

Tarell Alvin McCraney�s The Brothers Size is a new play about the fate of two brothers in which the audience is both witness and judge. The Brothers Size will have a full production and run this season after a successful presentation at Under the Radar 2007, the Public�s annual theater festival.

Under the Radar theatre festival will enter its fourth year in 2008, continuing to showcase theatre from around the world on the many stages of The Public.

The Public's 2007 & 08 Season:

• New York Premiere
  Hamlet
  Written by: William Shakespeare
  Directed by: Elizabeth LeCompte
  Performed by: The Wooster Group
  Synopsis: Described as "A wildly inventive take on Shakespeare�s best-known tragedy." In development since 2005.
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the fall.
• World Premiere
  The Brothers Size
  Written by: Tarell Alvin McCraney
  Directed by: Elizabeth LeCompteTea Alagic
  Synopsis: A new play about the fate of two brothers in which the audience is both witness and judge.
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the fall.
• World Premiere
  Yellow Face
  Written by: David Henry Hwang
  Directed by: Leigh Silverman
  Performed by: Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Kathryn Layng, Hoon Lee, Tony Torn
  Synopsis: Playwright David Henry Hwang puts himself center stage with alter-ego DHH, telling his side of the controversy stirred up when he led the protest against the hiring of Jonathan Pryce in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon. Truth and fiction are hard to separate as Hwang gives us a backstage look at his search to confront the roles that race and ethnicity play in America.
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the fall.
• World Premiere
  Conversations In Tusculum
  Written by: Richard Nelson
  Performed by: Brian Dennehy, David Strathairn, Maria Tucci
  Synopsis: The country you love and the values it represents are being destroyed by a misguided leader. You can continue to live in relative comfort by not involving yourself, or you can take action to save the democracy you love. Set outside of Rome in the villas and hillsides of Tusculum, Richard Nelson continues his revelatory exploration of history with a new play that chronicles those entangled in Julius Caesar�s world of manipulation and power.
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the winter.
• U.S. Premiere
  Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?
  Written by: Caryl Churchill
  Directed by: James Macdonald
  Synopsis: Jack would do anything for Sam. Sam would do anything.
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the spring.
• World Premiere
  Little Flower of East Orange
  Written by: Stephen Adly Guirgis
  Directed by: Philip Seymour Hoffman
  Synopsis: An inter-generational ghost story set in an upper Manhattan charity hospital.
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the spring.
• U.S. Premiere
  Kicking A Dead Horse
  Written by: Sam Shepard
  Directed by: Sam Shepard
  Synopsis: A new play about the myth of the West, a Manhattan art dealer and a dead horse
  Performed by: Stephen Rea
  Dates: TBA. Expected in the summer.