Playwrights Horizons Now Accepting “Liveforfive” Lottery Entries for Placebo
For $5 Tickets To The First Preview Of The World Premiere Of Placebo, A New Play By Obie Award Winner Melissa James Gibson, Directed By Three-Time Obie Award Winner Daniel Aukin
At Its Official Website www.PHnyc.org
“LIVEforFIVE” Ticketing Initiative Makes Available $5 Tickets for the First Performance of Every Production at Playwrights Horizons via an Online Ticket Lottery
Previews begin Friday, February 20
Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) is now accepting entries for its popular LIVEforFIVE online lottery for up to two $5 tickets each to the world premiere of PLACEBO, a new play by Obie Award winner Melissa James Gibson (This at PH, What Rhymes with America, Suitcase, [sic], the FX series “The Americans,” “House of Cards” on Netflix). Directed by three-time Obie Award winner Daniel Aukin (This at PH, The Fortress of Solitude, Bad Jews,4000 Miles, [sic]), the play is the fourth production of the theater company’s 2014/2015 Season.
The LIVEforFIVE lottery for PLACEBO will be for tickets to the first preview on Friday evening, February 20 at 8PM at Playwrights Horizons’ Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street). The production has an Opening Night set for Monday, March 16 and will play a limited engagement through Sunday, April 5.
A ticketing initiative created in 2007 as part of Playwrights Horizons’ Arts Access program, LIVEforFIVE makes a limited number of $5 tickets available for the first preview performance of each Playwrights Horizons production through a lottery via the company’s website (www.PHnyc.org).
Details for the LIVEforFIVE lottery are as follows: beginning today, Wednesday, February 11, theatergoers can enter the lottery by filling out an entry form at www.PHnyc.org. Entries will be accepted until Tuesday, February 17 at 12 Noon. Winners of the lottery will be notified via email no later than 3PM on Tuesday, February 17 with instructions on how to book their $5 tickets. Unclaimed tickets will be offered via email to a limited standby list starting at 12 Noon on Wednesday, February 18 on a first-come, first-served basis. One or two tickets may be purchased for $5 each.
The cast of PLACEBO features Tony Award nominee and Theatre World Award winner Carrie Coon (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Gone Girl, Nora Durst in the HBO series “The Leftovers”), William Jackson Harper (A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick at PH; All the Way, Ruined, Modern Terrorism), Alex Hurt (Scenes from a Marriage, The Caucasian Chalk Circle,Unrequited) and Florencia Lozano (Red Dog Howls, Macbeth, Privilege).
A minty green pill – medication or sugar? Louise (Ms. Coon) is working on a placebo-controlled study of a new female arousal drug. As her work in the lab navigates the blurry lines between perception and deception, more and more these same questions pertain to her life at home. With uncanny insight and unparalleled wit, Melissa James Gibson’s affectionate comedy examines slippery truths and the power of crossed fingers.
Ms. Gibson and Mr. Aukin are longtime collaborators who are both returning to Playwrights Horizons for the first time since their acclaimed production of This in 2009.
The production features scenic and costume designs by Tony Award nominee David Zinn, lighting design by Matt Frey and sound design by Ryan Rumery. Production Stage Manager is Kyle Gates.
The performance schedule for PLACEBO will be Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7PM, Thursdays and Fridays at 8PM, Saturdaysat 2:30 PM & 8PM and Sundays at 2:30 PM & 7:30 PM. Single tickets, $75-95, may be purchased online via www.PHnyc.org, by phone at (212) 279-4200 (Noon-8pm daily) and in person at the Ticket Central Box Office, 416 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues).
Through the ticketing program launched last season, FIRST ROW SUNDAYS, Playwrights Horizons makes available front row tickets for all Sunday evening performances. Tickets, $25 each, will be available for those age 30 years and younger and can be purchased in advance online via www.PHnyc.org, by phone at (212) 279-4200 (Noon-8pm daily), or in person at the Ticket Central Box Office, 416 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues). Tickets are limited to one per customer and are subject to availability. Purchased tickets for FIRST ROW SUNDAYS can be picked up one hour before curtain on the day of the performance, with proof of age required at the door.
Also reflecting Playwrights Horizons’ ongoing commitment to making its productions more affordable to younger audiences, the theater company will offer HOTtix, $25 rush tickets, subject to availability, day of performance only, starting one hour before showtime to patrons aged 30 and under. Proof of age required. One ticket per person, per purchase. Cash only.
LIVEforFIVE, FIRST ROW SUNDAYS and HOTtix are three of Playwrights Horizons’ popular Arts Access initiatives, which allow the institution to reach out to those who may not be able to afford the cost of a full-price theater ticket. This program is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, McGraw Hill Financial and an Anonymous Individual Donor.
Following PLACEBO, the 2014/2015 Season will continue with IOWA, the world premiere of a new musical play by Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Commendation winner (2008) and finalist (2013) Jenny Schwartz, music and lyrics by Todd Almond, oratorio lyrics by Ms. Schwartz, directed by two-time Obie Award winner Ken Rus Schmoll; and conclude with THE QUALMS, the New York premiere of a new play by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Bruce Norris, directed by Tony and Obie awards winner Pam MacKinnon.
Subscription packages to Playwrights Horizons’ 2014/2015 Season are still available: FlexPass (4+ tickets, $50 per ticket); and Membership ($60 membership fee + one ticket at $45 or less for each show, as desired). In addition, the company will continue to offer 30&Under Membership ($20 membership fee + one $20 ticket for each show, as desired); and Student Membership ($10 membership fee + one $10 ticket for each show, as desired). In addition to discounts on all Mainstage season attractions, subscribers receive priority booking and seating, ticket exchange privileges, parking and dining discounts, and exclusive mailings of Playwrights Horizons Bulletins. Packages are available at www.PHnyc.org.
Patron Program Memberships begin at $1,500 (all but $550 is tax-deductible) and include two reserved house seats and personalized concierge service to all six Playwrights Horizons productions, and as well as a variety of exclusive benefits including invitations to attend special events with artists, staff and board members. Complete benefit list at www.PHnyc.org.
Playwrights Horizons recently announced the six productions of its 2015/2016 Season. In season order, they are: THE CHRISTIANS, the New York premiere of a new play by Lucas Hnath, directed by Obie Award winner Les Waters; HIR, the New York premiere of a new play by Obie Award winner Taylor Mac, directed by Niegel Smith; MARJORIE PRIME, the New York premiere of a Playwrights Horizons commission by Jordan Harrison, directed by Obie Award winner Anne Kauffman;FAMILIAR, the New York premiere of a new play by Danai Gurira, directed by Rebecca Taichman; ANTLIA PNEUMATICA,the world premiere of a Playwrights Horizons commission by Anne Washburn, directed by two-time Obie Award winner Ken Rus Schmoll; and INDIAN SUMMER, the world premiere of a Playwrights Horizons commission by Gregory S. Moss, directed byCarolyn Cantor.
A 6-Show Subscription package to Playwrights Horizons’ 2015/2016 Season is now available ($270, four Mainstage and two Peter Jay Sharp Theater productions). In addition to discounts on all season productions, subscribers receive priority booking and seating, ticket exchange privileges, parking and dining discounts, and exclusive mailings of Playwrights Horizons Bulletins. Packages are available at www.PHnyc.org now.
Playwrights Horizons’ season productions are generously supported in part by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Playwrights Horizons is supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. In addition, Playwrights Horizons receives major support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation and the Time Warner Foundation.
www.Facebook.com/PlaywrightsHorizons
BIOGRAPHIES
Melissa James Gibson’s (Playwright) returns to Playwrights Horizons for the first time since This in 2009 (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist). Her other plays include What Rhymes with America (Atlantic Theatre Company), [sic] (Obie Award for playwriting, Kesselring Prize, The Best Plays of 2001-2002); Suitcase or, those that resemble flies from a distance (NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, Rockefeller Foundation’s Multi-Arts Production Fund); Brooklyn Bridge, with a song by Barbara Brousal (AT&T Onstage award); All Is Not (New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Artist Commission); and Current Nobody, a loose adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey (2005 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist; 2006 Sundance Theatre Lab). Gibson’s work has been produced at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Soho Rep, La Jolla Playhouse and the Children’s Theatre Company, as well as many other theaters, regionally and internationally. Currently, Gibson is working on commissions for Center Theatre Group, the Atlantic Theater Company and Manhattan Theater Club. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Gibson has been a Jerome and MacDowell Colony Fellow, a recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, La Jolla and The Children’s Theatre Company/New Dramatists Playground program. [sic] and Suitcase are available through Dramatists Play Service. The complete text of Brooklyn Bridge appeared in the July/August 2005 issue of American Theatre. Gibson is a graduate of New Dramatists and the recipient of a 2006 Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights’ Fellowship and a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. She is a writer and story editor for the FX series “The Americans” and “House of Cards” on Netflix.
Daniel Aukin (Director) most recently directed his musical adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel The Fortress of Solitude with Michael Friedman and Itamar Moses at The Public. Other recent New York credits include Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews at Roundabout Theatre Company, Melissa James Gibson’s What Rhymes with America (Atlantic Theater Company) and This (Playwrights Horizons), Sam Shepard’s Heartless (Signature), Amy Herzog’s4000 Miles (Lincoln Center) and Itamar Moses’ Back Back Back (Manhattan Theatre Club). Other credits include A View from the Bridge at Arena Stage, Melissa James Gibson’s Current Nobody at Woolly Mammoth and Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine at La Jolla Playhouse, as well as a workshop of Rachel Axler’s new play Smudge at the Eugene O’Neill Conference. As Artistic Director of Soho Rep, Daniel directed Mark Schultz’s critically acclaimed Everything Will Be Done (world premiere) Melissa James Gibson’s [sic] (World Premiere, Obie Award for Direction), Quincy Long’sThe Year of the Baby (world premiere), Mac Wellman’s Cat’s Paw (world premiere), Marie Irene Fornes’ Molly’s Dream (world premiere), and Melissa James Gibson’s Suitcase (also at La Jolla Playhouse). During his tenure at Soho Rep, he strengthened the company’s commitment to developing iconoclastic new plays. He commissioned over fifty new plays though the Writer/Director Lab and produced sixteen-full-length productions (including new plays by Adam Bock, The Flying Machine, Young Jean Lee and Richard Maxwell). Accolades for this body of work include eight Obie awards, four Drama Desk nominations, two Kesselring Prizes and one Oppenheimer Award.
Carrie Coon (Louise). Playwrights Horizons debut. Broadway: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony Award nomination, Theatre World Award). Other theater: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Arena Stage); Three Sisters, The March, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); The Real Thing (Writers’ Theatre); Magnolia (Goodman Theatre). Film: Gone Girl. TV: “The Leftovers,” “Ironside,” “Intelligence,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Playboy Club.”
William Jackson Harper (Jonathan). PH: A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick. Broadway: All the Way. Off-Broadway: Modern Terrorism(Second Stage); Massacre (Rattlestick); The Total Bent, Titus Andronicus (The Public); Ruined (MTC); Paradise Park, Queens Boulevard (the musical)(Signature). Other theater: You Got Older (HERE), Dance of the Holy Ghosts (NYS&F), Neglect (EST). Member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Alex Hurt (Tom). Playwrights Horizons debut. Off-Broadway: Scenes from a Marriage (NYTW), Caucasian Chalk Circle (CSC), Unrequited (The Public). Other theater: Other Desert Cities (Alley Theatre); Traps (Wilma); The Lion in Winter, Othello (Hedgerow Theatre). Film: A Better Man,Crystal Sessions, The River Why.
Florencia Lozano (Mary). Playwrights Horizons debut. Off-Broadway: Red Dog Howls (NYTW), Macbeth (NYSF/Delacorte), Privilege (Second Stage),Last Easter (MCC), Right You Are (National Actors Theatre), Where’s My Money (MTC). Member of LAByrinth Theater Company, where she was Associate Artistic Director (2004-2009). Her play underneathmybed was produced by Rattlestick in 2010 and won the HOLA Award for Best New Play.
Playwrights Horizons is a writer’s theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists and to the production of their new work. Under the leadership of artistic director Tim Sanford and managing director Leslie Marcus, the theater company continues to encourage the new work of veteran writers while nurturing an emerging generation of theater artists. In its 44 years, Playwrights Horizons has presented the work of more than 400 writers and has received numerous awards and honors, including a special 2008 Drama Desk Award for “ongoing support to generations of theater artists and undiminished commitment to producing new work.” Notable productions include six Pulitzer Prize winners – Annie Baker’s The Flick (2013 Obie Award, 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park (2012 Tony Award, Best Play), Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife (2004 Tony Award, Best Play), Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles (1989 Tony Award, Best Play), Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George – as well as Ms. Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation (three 2010 Obie Awards including Best New American Play); Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit (2013 Obie Award, Best New American Play); Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale (2013 Lortel Award, Best Play); Kirsten Greenidge’s Milk Like Sugar (2012 Obie Award); Robert O’Hara’s Bootycandy; Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, Sarah Ruhl’s Stage Kiss and Dead Man’s Cell Phone; Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn; Dan LeFranc’s The Big Meal; Amy Herzog’s The Great God Pan and After the Revolution; Bathsheba Doran’s Kin; Adam Bock’s A Small Fire; Edward Albee’s Me, Myself & I; Melissa James Gibson’s This (2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist); Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie’sGrey Gardens (three 2007 Tony Awards); Craig Lucas’s Prayer For My Enemy and Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play); Adam Rapp’s Kindness; Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting); Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero; David Greenspan’s She Stoops to Comedy (2003 Obie Award); Kirsten Childs’s The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (2000 Obie Award); Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey’s James Joyce’s The Dead (2000 Tony Award, Best Book); Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins; William Finn’s March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland; Christopher Durang’s Betty’s Summer Vacation and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You; Richard Nelson’sGoodnight Children Everywhere; Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s Once on This Island; Jon Robin Baitz’s The Substance of Fire; Scott McPherson’s Marvin’s Room; A.R. Gurney’s Later Life; Adam Guettel and Tina Landau’s Floyd Collins; and Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley’s Violet.
# # #
