September 29, 2014
Roundabout Theatre Company
Announces
THE HUMANS
By Stephen Karam
Directed by Tony Award® winner Joe Mantello
A second commission by the playwright of
SPEECH & DEBATE and SONS OF THE PROPHET
Performances begin Fall 2015
At the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre
Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) is pleased to announce that acclaimed playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephen Karam’s newest play The Humans will receive its New York debut Off-Broadway in Fall 2015, directed by two-time Tony Award® winner Joe Mantello.
The production begins performances in Fall 2015 at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Centre for Theatre (111 West 46th Street).
Karam’s play The Humans is part of Roundabout’s New Play Initiative, a collection of programs, designed to foster and produce new work by emerging and established artists. The Humans is Karam’s second play commissioned by Roundabout Theatre Company, following his hugely acclaimed Speech & Debate (2007) and Sons of the Prophet (his first Roundabout commission; 2011).
After a sleepless night, Mr. Blake has brought his family from Pennsylvania to celebrate Thanksgiving at his daughter’s new apartment. As darkness falls outside the crumbling pre-war duplex, mysterious things start to go bump in the night and family tensions reach a boiling point. Stephen Karam (Sons of the Prophet, Speech & Debate) takes a fresh look at the hilarity, heart and horrors of the modern American family.
The full cast and design team will be announced at a later date.
TICKET INFORMATION:
The Humans is part of Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2015-2016 Season, and tickets are currently available as part of a ‘Choose Your Own’ subscription package. Full 2015-2016 Season packages will go on sale in January 2015, and single tickets for The Humans will be available in summer 2015.
Whether you are interested in the best value or VIP experiences, Roundabout has a package option for you. For more information on subscriptions or VIP experiences visit roundabouttheatre.org/subscribe or call 212-719-1300. To be the first to know about tickets and other news, sign up for Roundabout’s email club at www.roundabouttheatre.org.
BIOGRAPHIES
STEPHEN KARAM (Playwright) is the author of Sons of the Prophet, a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and the recipient of the 2012 Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and Hull-Warriner Awards for Best Play. Other plays include Speech & Debate, the inaugural production of Roundabout Underground; columbinus (New York Theatre Workshop); and the libretto for Dark Sisters, an original chamber opera with composer Nico Muhly. Stephen is a MacDowell Colony fellow and the recipient of the inaugural Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Drama Desk Award. He teaches graduate playwriting at The New School. He grew up in Scranton, PA and is a graduate of Brown University.
JOE MANTELLO (Director). Directing credits include The Last Ship, Casa Valentina, I’ll Eat You Last, The Other Place, Dogfight, Other Desert Cities, The Pride, Pal Joey, 9 to 5, Wicked, Blackbird, November, The Receptionist, The Ritz, Three Days of Rain, The Odd Couple, Glengarry Glen Ross, Laugh Whore, Assassins (Tony Award), Take Me Out (Tony Award), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Design for Living, The Vagina Monologues, bash, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Proposals, The Mineola Twins, Corpus Christi. Film: Love! Valour! Compassion! As an actor: The Normal Heart (Tony Award nomination), Angels in America (Tony Award nomination) and The Baltimore Waltz. He is the recipient of Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Clarence Derwent, Obie and Joe A. Callaway awards. He is a member of Naked Angels and an associate artist at Roundabout Theatre Company.
The Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre opened in March 2004 with an acclaimed premiere of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel starring Viola Davis, directed by Dan Sullivan. In the ten years since that landmark production, the center has expanded beyond the Laura Pels Theatre to include the Black Box Theatre and now a new education center. The Steinberg Center continues to reflect Roundabout’s commitment to produce new works by established and emerging writers as well as revivals of classic plays. This state-of-the-art off-Broadway theatre and education complex is made possible by a major gift from The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. The Trust was created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg to promote and advance American Theatre as a vital part of our culture by supporting playwrights, encouraging the development and production of new work, and providing financial assistance to not-for-profit theatre companies across the country. Since its inception, the Trust has awarded over $70 million to more than 125 theatre organizations.
Roundabout Theatre Company is committed to producing the highest quality theatre with the finest artists, sharing stories that endure, and providing accessibility to all audiences. A not-for-profit company, Roundabout fulfills its mission each season through the production of classic plays and musicals; development and production of new works by established and emerging writers; educational initiatives that enrich the lives of children and adults; and a subscription model and audience outreach programs that cultivate and engage all audiences.
Roundabout Theatre Company presents a variety of plays, musicals, and new works on its five stages, each of which is specifically designed to enhance the needs of Roundabout’s mission. Off-Broadway, the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, with its simple sophisticated design, is perfectly suited to showcasing new plays. The grandeur of its Broadway home on 42nd Street, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics. Roundabout’s Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. The Stephen Sondheim Theatre offers a state of the art LEED certified Broadway theatre in which to stage major large-scale musical revivals. Together these distinctive homes serve to enhance Roundabout’s work on each of its stages.
Roundabout’s work to support new and emerging playwrights and directors, as well as help create and develop new work, is made possible by Katheryn Patterson and Tom Kempner.
New plays are supported by Roundabout Leaders for New Works: Alec Baldwin, Peggy and Mark Ellis, Jodi Glucksman, Sylvia Golden, Caryn and James Magid, K. Myers, Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, Laura S. Rodgers, Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Yolanda R. Turocy, Lori Uddenberg, Deborah and Thomas Wallace, and Xerox Foundation.
American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art Works.
Roundabout’s 2014-2015 season includes Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing starring Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton and Cynthia Nixon, directed by Sam Gold; Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink starring Romola Garai and Rosemary Harris, directed by Carey Perloff; Coleman, Comden & Green’s On The Twentieth Century starring Kristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher, directed by Scott Ellis; and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods.
The 2014-2015 Roundabout Underground production will be Little Children Dream of God, a new play by Jeff Augustin, directed by Giovanna Sardelli.
Roundabout’s production of Masteroff, Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams, directed by Sam Mendes & Rob Marshall (co-director/choreographer), is playing at Studio 54.
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