FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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NEW GEORGES
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
WOMEN'S PROJECT THEATER
PRESENTS
A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN NOVEMBER ON
THE BANKS OF THE GREATEST
OF THE GREAT LAKES
Mia Katigbak, Evan Thompson, Brooke Ishibashi, Nina Hellman, Heather Alicia Simms, Christian Felix & Jessica Almasy
Photo credit: Jessica Osber
WRITTEN BY KATE BENSON
DIRECTED BY LEE SUNDAY EVANS
PREVIEWS JANUARY 12-14
OPENING NIGHT THURSDAY JANUARY 15
JANUARY 12 - FEBRUARY 7 @ CITY CENTER STAGE II
New Georges (Susan Bernfield, Producing Artistic Director; Sarah Cameron Sunde, Deputy Artistic Director; Jaynie Saunders Tiller, Managing Director) will remount their critically acclaimed production of Kate Benson's A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes directed by Lee Sunday Evans in association with Women's Project Theater, January 12-February 7 at City Center Stage II (131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues). Performances will be 1/12-1/17, 1/20-1/24, 1/27-1/30 & 2/3-2/7 at 7:30pm, 1/17, 1/24, 1/25, 2/1 & 2/7 at 2:30pm, 1/31 at 8pm and 2/6 at 3pm. Tickets ($35-$45) are available online at www.nycitycenter.org or by calling 212.581.1212.
"For those of you just tuning in, Thanksgiving is already in progress here at Wembly kitchen. The stands are nice and full, it's quite a crowd that's gathered. They're in for a real treat." And so, in this witty exploration of how family is played, over time and memory and through generations… a pair of sports announcers calls a holiday dinner.
A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes was developed in The New Georges Jam, a "performance gym" for early-career playwrights and directors. The play originally premiered in May 2014 as part of the New Georges Jam On Toast play festival at Dixon Place. Great Lakes is Kate Benson's first produced play.
"Ms. Benson, the playwright, is fearless and remarkably assured in this dizzyingly entertaining work. The direction of Ms. Evans unfurls it on the Dixon Place stage with wit and verve, conjuring the story — the preparation and serving of a gigantic family dinner — without so much as a salad plate in sight." Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times
KATE BENSON (Playwright) is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn. Her plays include A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes, produced by New Georges in 2014, [PORTO], Lee Miller, and Radium Now. She is a member of The New Georges Jam and the 2014-15 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and she is a graduate of the Brooklyn College MFA Playwriting program. She is the recipient of the Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission. She has had readings and showings of her work at Dixon Place, 13th St. Theater, Jimmy's No. 43, and The Room at New Georges. As an actor, she has appeared at The Public, NYTW, The Flea, PS 122, the Incubator, and LaMama.
LEE SUNDAY EVANS (Director) is a director and choreographer. As the resident director for CollaborationTown, she has directed The Play About My Dad, The Deepest Play Ever, The Momentum, and Family Play (1979 to Present). Other recent productions include: So Go the Ghosts of Mexico, Part ll by Matthew Paul Olmos (Sundance Theatre Lab), God's Ear by Jenny Schwartz (Juilliard), All Girls by Anna Greenfield (Horse Trade), The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Cyrano de Bergerac (Waterwell/PPAS). Her work has been presented and developed at: 59E59, Sundance Theater Lab, The New Ohio, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Culture Project, Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, Dixon Place, LaMama, Emerging America Festival/Huntington Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, Coatesville VA Medical Center. With CTown, she is currently developing a new musical for New Victory's LabWorks commissioning program. Time Warner Fellow of 2014-2016 Lab at Women's Project Theater, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, New Georges Affiliated Artist. BFA: Boston University.
NEW GEORGES, founded in 1992, is a strategically small company with a national reputation for taking a first look at new and experimental plays and artists, and as a home and a playground for some of the most adventurous theater artists (who are women) working today. New Georges supports the largest ongoing working community of women theater artists in New York City (currently almost 200 playwrights, directors, actors and designers), providing its artists with essential resources and opportunities, including The Room, our workspace for women theater artists, founded in 1994. New Georges' 20-year commitment to providing its artists with free or low-cost workspace for new play development is unique among downtown theaters and has incubated thousands of new works.
New Georges has premiered 41 new full-length plays and 11 festivals of new work; hundreds of original works have passed through The Room on their way to venues in New York City and beyond. Notable productions have included: Lynn Rosen's Goldor $ Mythyka; Kara Lee Corthron's AliceGraceAnon; Peggy Stafford's Motel Cherry (Huffington Post Top Ten); Sylvan Oswald's Nightlands; Heidi Schreck's Creature; Eisa Davis' Angela's Mixtape (New Yorker Top Ten Off Broadway Shows); Jenny Schwartz's God's Ear (Time Out New York Top Ten); Wendy Weiner's Hillary: A Modern Greek Tragedy With a (Somewhat) Happy Ending; Susan Bernfield'sStretch (a fantasia); Sheila Callaghan's Dead City (Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Deb Margolin's Three Seconds in the Key (Kesselring Prize); and Lisa D'Amour's Anna Bella Eema.
WOMEN'S PROJECT THEATER is the nation's oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing and promoting the work of female theater artists at every stage in their careers. WP supports women theater artists and the world-class, groundbreaking work they create, and provides a platform where women's voices can be heard and celebrated on the American stage. At a time when gender parity is still a distant goal, the unique mission of WP is more essential than ever.
In service of that important mission, over the past 37 years WP has produced over 600 main stage productions and developmental projects, and published 11 anthologies of plays by women. WP has been the launching pad for many of our nation's most important female theater artists. Eve Ensler, María Irene Fornés, Katori Hall, Pam MacKinnon, Lynn Nottage, Leigh Silverman and Anna Deveare Smith, among many, many others, all found early artistic homes here. No other producing institution in the country can claim this kind of ongoing history of advocacy and support for women in the theater, and we look ahead to the next generation of female artists who will also begin their careers here.
WP Theater accomplishes its mission through several fundamental programs: the WP Lab, a two-year mentorship and new play development program for women playwrights, directors, and producers, the Playwright In Residence commissioning program, our Developmental series, and the Main Stage series, which features a full season of Off-Broadway productions written and directed by extraordinary women theater artists.
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