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Fool for Love Ripcord

Fool for Love Ripcord

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 3, 2014 Contact: Chris Boneau/ Aaron Meier/ Emily Meagher/Michelle Farabaugh Follow MTC on : @MTC_NYC (#TheCountryHouse) or on Facebook Follow BBB on Twitter: @BBBway and on Facebook

Manhattan Theatre Club Announces Two Productions For 2015-2016 Season

On Broadway at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre By Directed by Daniel Aukin Starring and Presented in Association with Williamstown Theatre Festival

At Center – Stage I Ripcord World Premiere Comedy By David Lindsay-Abaire Directed by Starring and Mary Louise Wilson

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) are pleased to announce the first two productions of Theatre Club’s 2015-2016 season.

MTC’s Broadway season at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) will begin next fall with the Broadway premiere of Williamstown Theatre Festival’s acclaimed production of Fool for Love by Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard, directed by winner Daniel Aukin, starring Tony Award winner Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell.

MTC’s season at New York City Center – Stage I (131 West 55th Street) will feature the world premiere of Ripcord, the new comedy by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, directed by Tony and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce starring winner Marylouise Burke and Tony Award winner Mary Louise Wilson.

ON BROADWAY AT MTC’S SAMUEL J. FRIEDMAN THEATRE Fool for Love Broadway Premiere of Sam Shepard’s Acclaimed Play Directed by Daniel Aukin Starring Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell Presented in Association with Williamstown Theatre Festival

Previews Begin: Tuesday, September 15, 2015 Opening Night: Thursday, October 8, 2015

Holed up in a seedy motel on the edge of the Mojave Desert, two former lovers unpack the deep secrets and dark desires of their tangled relationship, passionately tearing each other apart. Beaten down by ill-fated love and a ruthless struggle for identity, can they ultimately live with, or without, each other? Led by director Daniel Aukin (Back Back Back at MTC; 4,000 Miles), Tony Award winner Nina Arianda ( at MTC, ) and Sam Rockwell (A Behanding in Spokane, The Way Way Back) bring an explosive intensity to Sam Shepard’s (, ) landmark myth of the new Wild West.

Fool for Love is presented in association with Williamstown Theatre Festival (Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director).

Additional casting and creative team for Fool for Love will be announced in the coming weeks.

MTC AT NEW YORK CITY CENTER – STAGE I Ripcord World Premiere Comedy by David Lindsay-Abaire Directed by David Hyde Pierce Starring Marylouise Burke and Mary Louise Wilson

Previews Begin: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 Opening Night: Tuesday, October 20, 2015

David Lindsay-Abaire, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of , , and , returns to MTC with Ripcord, a high-stakes comedy about two women of a certain age locked in a no-holds-barred battle to the death directed by Tony and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce.

A sunny room on an upper floor is prime real estate in the Bristol Place Assisted Living Facility, so when the cantankerous Abby (Tony Award winner Mary Louise Wilson) is forced to share her quarters with new-arrival Marilyn (frequent Lindsay-Abaire collaborator and Drama Desk Award winner Marylouise Burke), she has no choice but to get rid of the infuriatingly chipper woman by any means necessary. A seemingly harmless bet between the old women quickly escalates into a dangerous game of one-upmanship that reveals not just the tenacity of these worthy opponents, but also deeper truths that each would rather remain hidden. As heartfelt as it is deliciously inappropriate, this hilarious world premiere marks the author’s sixth collaboration with MTC.

Ripcord was commissioned by MTC through the Bank of America New American Play Program.

Additional casting and creative team for Ripcord will be announced in the coming weeks.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director and Executive Producer Barry Grove, MTC has become one of the country’s most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Over the past four and a half decades, MTC productions have earned numerous awards including six Pulitzer Prizes and 19 . MTC has a Broadway home at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) and two Off-Broadway theatres at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street). Renowned MTC productions include Casa Valentina; ; The Assembled Parties; Venus in Fur; ; Good People; The Whipping Man; Time Stands Still; The Royal Family; ; Come Back, Little Sheba; Blackbird; Shining City; Rabbit Hole; Doubt; ; The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife; Love! Valour! Compassion!; A Small Family Business; Sylvia; Putting It Together; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; ; and Ain’t Misbehavin.’ For more information on MTC, please visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.

TICKETING INFORMATION To find out more about subscribing to , call the Clubline at (212) 399-3050. Single ticket information and other listings information for MTC’s 2015-2016 season will be announced at a later date.

BIOGRAPHIES FOR FOOL FOR LOVE SAM SHEPARD (Playwright) had his first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, produced by Theatre Genesis in 1963. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off- groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays have won Obie Awards including and Icarus’s Mother (1965); Cross and (1966); Forensic and the Navigators and Melodrama Play (1967); (1972); (1974); and Curse of the Starving Class (1976). Shepard was awarded a Pulitzer Prize as as an Obie Award for his play Buried Child (1979). Fool for Love (1982) received the Obie for Best Play as well as for Direction. (1985) won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1986 and the 1986 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Play. A revived Buried Child under the direction of opened on Broadway in April 1996 and was nominated for a Tony Award. Kicking a Dead Horse (2007) and Ages of the Moon (2009) both received their world premieres at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Kicking a Dead Horse transferred to The Public Theater in New York and to the Almeida Theatre in , and Ages of the Moon received its U.S. premiere at Atlantic Theater in 2010. Shepard’s latest play, Heartless, premiered in 2012 at Signature, where his latest work, A Particle of Dread, starring Stephen Rea, is currently playing. Shepard wrote the screenplays for Zabriskie Point; Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas; and ’s Fool for Love, a film version of his play of the same title. As writer/director, he filmed Far North and in 1988 and 1992 respectively. As an actor he has appeared in the films Days of Heaven, Resurrection, Raggedy Man, The Right Stuff, Frances, Country, Fool for Love, Crimes of the Heart, Baby Boom, Steel Magnolias, Bright Angel, Defenseless, Voyager, Thunderheart, The Pelican Brief, Safe Passage, Hamlet and, most recently, Don’t Come Knocking, also co-written with Wim Wenders. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1992, he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and in 1994, he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.

DANIEL AUKIN (Director) co-conceived and most recently directed the New York premiere of the musical The Fortress of Solitude, based on the best-selling novel by Jonathan Lethem for the Public Theater, following a successful run at Dallas Theater Center.

Aukin’s production of Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love garnered extraordinary reviews for its run at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Daniel directed Bad Jews for the Roundabout Underground, to such acclaim that the production transferred to the Laura Pels Theatre, through the Roundabout Theatre Company. Other recent directing credits include The Royale by Marco Ramirez at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, and Melissa James Gibson’s What Rhymes With America for the Atlantic Theater; Daniel’s acclaimed production of by moved to LCT’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater following a wildly successful run at LCT3.

Aukin recently directed The Ugly One at SoHo Repertory Theatre, and the critically acclaimed world premiere of This by Melissa James Gibson at Playwrights Horizons and the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Other credits include: Back Back Back by Itamar Moses at Manhattan Theatre Club, Arthur Miller’s at Arena Stage, Melissa James Gibson’s Current Nobody at Woolly Mammoth, Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine at La Jolla Playhouse. As Artistic Director of Soho Rep., Aukin directed Mark Schultz’s critically acclaimed Everything Will Be Different (world premiere), Melissa James Gibson’s [sic] (OBIE award for direction), Quincy Long’s The Year of the Baby (world premiere), Mac Wellman’s Cat’s-Paw (world premiere), Marie Irene Fornes’ Molly’s Dream (world premiere, OBIE Award), and Melissa James Gibson’s Suitcase (also at La Jolla Playhouse). For other theatres: Melissa James Gibson’s Brooklyn Bridge at the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis and Mat Smart’s The Hopper Collection at the Huntington Theatre.

Aukin was Artistic Director of Soho Rep (1998-2006) where he commissioned over fifty new plays though the Writer/Director Lab and produced many premieres garnering eight Obie awards, four Drama Desk nominations, two Kesselring Prizes, and one Oppenheimer Award.

NINA ARIANDA (May). Broadway: Venus in Fur (2012 Tony Award), Born Yesterday (Tony Award nomination, OCC Award). Off-Broadway: Fool for Love (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Venus in Fur (CSC, AEA’s Clarence Derwent Award, and Clive Barnes Award), Tales from Red Vienna (Manhattan Theatre Club). Film: You Were Never Here, The Humbling, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Lucky Them, Rob the Mob, Tower Heist, Midnight in Paris, Higher Ground, Win Win. Television: “,” “Hostages,” “.” M.F.A. NYU’s Tisch graduate acting program.

SAM ROCKWELL (Eddie). Rockwell’s upcoming films include Poltergeist opposite Rosemarie DeWitt (February 2015), Jared Hess’ Don Verdean, and Mr. Right opposite . Additional film credits include: Laggies, The Way Way Back, A Single Shot, Better Living Through Chemistry, Trust Me, Loitering with Intent, Seven Psychopaths, The Sitter, Cowboys and Aliens, Conviction, Iron Man 2, Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Everybody’s Fine, Moon, Choke, Frost/Nixon, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Charlie’s Angels, Galaxy Quest, The Green Mile, Celebrity, Clownhouse. Theater credits include A Behanding In Spokane (Broadway); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (The Public Theater); Face Divided (EST); Goose-Pimples (New Group); and Fool for Love, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Dumb Waiter & The Zoo Story, and Hot L Baltimore at the Williamstown Theater Festival.

WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL, recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, has created renowned productions of both new American plays, and revivals of some of the great works of the theatrical canon. Bringing together gifted emerging theater artists with our country’s finest theater professionals, WTF creates a vibrant festival each summer in the Berkshires. The Festival runs unmatched training and professional development programs for new generations of actors, writers, directors, designers and managers. The artists and productions shaped at the Festival each summer fill theaters in New York and around the country each season. The Festival is currently represented by The Elephant Man on Broadway this season, as well as Here Lies Love in London and Off-Broadway. The Williamstown Theatre Festival welcomed Mandy Greenfield as Artistic Director in September 2014.

BIOGRAPHIES FOR RIPCORD DAVID LINDSAY-ABAIRE (Playwright) is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, screenwriter, lyricist, and librettist. His play Good People premiered on Broadway, was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, The Horton Foote Prize, The Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, and two Tony nominations. His previous play, Rabbit Hole received the , five Tony nominations, and the Spirit of America Award. He also wrote the book and lyrics for Shrek the Musical, which was nominated for eight Tonys, four Oliviers, a Grammy, and earned him the Ed Kleban Award as America’s most promising musical theatre lyricist. Lindsay-Abaire’s other plays include Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo, Wonder of the World and A Devil Inside, among others. Ripcord will be the sixth of David’s plays to premiere at MTC, following Good People, Rabbit Hole, Kimberly Akimbo, Fuddy Meers, and Wonder of the World. In addition to his work in theatre, Lindsay-Abaire’s screen credits include his film adaptation of Rabbit Hole, Dreamworks’ Rise of the Guardians, and MGM’s upcoming Poltergeist reboot, among others.

DAVID HYDE PIERCE (Director) Emmy and Tony Award winner David Hyde Pierce returns to Manhattan Theatre Club, this time as a director, after starring for MTC Off-Broadway in 2011's Close Up Space, and in the 2009 Broadway revival of Accent on Youth. This spring, Pierce will make his Broadway directorial debut with It Shoulda Been You, an original musical by Barbara Anselmi and Brian Hargrove, which he first directed during its debut run at the George Street Playhouse. Performances are set to begin March 17, 2015 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, in advance of an April 14 opening. Pierce’s previous directing credits also include a gangster-themed revival of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Los Angeles premiere of Christopher Durang’s Tony-winning Best Play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, for which Pierce earned a Best Actor Tony nomination during its Broadway run.

As an actor, Pierce originated the role of Sir Robin in the Broadway production of Monty Python's , and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. In 2007, he won the Tony Award and earned another Drama Desk Award nomination for his role in the musical comedy Curtains.

Perhaps best known for his role on TV's iconic comedy, “,” Pierce earned four Emmy Awards among many other accolades. He can currently be seen starring opposite on CBS's critically acclaimed drama, “The Good Wife.” Pierce’s film credits include Little Man Tate, Sleepless in Seattle, Nixon, Down with Love, and the Sundance Film Festival selection The Perfect Host.

Pierce is a 2010 recipient of the Isabelle Stevenson Award for his work in the fight against Alzheimer's.

MARYLOUISE BURKE (Marilyn) is excited to work again with David Lindsay-Abaire at Manhattan Theatre Club, where she appeared in his New York premiere productions of Fuddy Meers (Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress), Wonder Of The World, and Kimberly Akimbo (Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Leading Actress; Outer Critics’ Circle nomination). Their history together also includes David’s NYC debut with A Devil Inside at Soho Rep and the Geffen Playhouse production of Good People in Los Angeles. Her Broadway credits include , Is He Dead? and the upcoming Fish in the Dark. Among her recent Off-Broadway and regional productions are Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Westside Theatre), Rx (Primary Stages), The Savannah Disputation (Playwrights Horizons), American Sligo (Rattlestick), The Oldest Profession (Signature), Bruce Norris’ A Parallelogram (at both Steppenwolf Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum), and The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by David Hyde Pierce at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her television work includes “30 Rock,” “Fringe,” “Hung” (recurring), “Delocated,” “Law & Order (and SVU),” “We Are Men,” “Baby Daddy,” “Flesh and Bone,” and “” (recurring). She has appeared in the movies Sideways, A Prairie Home Companion, Series 7, Must Love Dogs, I Love You Phillip Morris, The Baxter, Mona Lisa Smile, Meet Joe Black, Ira and Abby, That’s What She Said, and Sleepwalk With Me. Burke received the 2014 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance.

MARY LOUISE WILSON (Abby). On Broadway, Wilson was Edie in (Tony Award), Fraulein Schneider in the Broadway revival of (Tony nomination), and Mrs. Morehouse in the Roundabout Theatre’s The Women. She appeared in Amy Herzog’s 4,000 Miles at Lincoln Center (Obie Award) and portrayed fashion icon Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop which she co-wrote with Mark Hampton (Obie and Drama Desk Awards). Other recent Off-Broadway plays include Love, Loss, and What I Wore; Bosoms and Neglect at the Signature, and The Beard of Avon at NYTW (Drama Desk nomination). Recent television appearances include “Mozart in the Jungle,” “Devious Maids,” “The Sopranos,” “Louie CK,” and “Nurse Jackie.” Film work includes: Nebraska, The Humbling, Step Mom, Klute, Green Card, She-Devil, Pet Semetary, Zelig, and Money Pit.

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