Every day is opening night.

Mcc Theater Adds “A Funny Thing. . .” by Halley Feiffer to Its 2015-16 Season

Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Scott Braun / Michael Jorgensen

rick@oandmco.com / scott@oandmco.com / mike@oandmco.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

MCC THEATER

ADDS

“ A    F U N N Y   T H I N G . . . ”

BY HALLEY FEIFFER

TO ITS 2015-16 SEASON

 

TRIP CULLMAN SET TO DIRECT

New York, NY (March 5, 2015) – MCC THEATER (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director) is thrilled to announce the final production of its four-show 2015-16 Main Stage Season, which runs August 2015 through June 2016.  Playwright Halley Feiffer (I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard) will make her MCC Theater debut with her play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York CityTrip Cullman returns to direct after helming this season’s critically acclaimed hit Punk Rock.  Full details below.  This also marks the reunion of Feiffer and Cullman following their hit production of I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard at the Atlantic Theater Company in early 2015.

A Funny Thing… will be the fourth and final production of MCC’s 2015-16 Season which also includes the previously announced New York premieres of: The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, which premiered last summer at Denver Theater Center; Lost Girls, John Pollono’s follow-up to hit MCC production Small Engine Repair which debuted at LA’s Rogue Machine Theatre; and Smokefall by Noah Haidle, which received a hit run at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago last fall.  All productions will be staged at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street).

MCC is currently in the midst of its acclaimed 2014-15 Season, with Jennifer Haley’s prize-winning The Nether having its New York premiere, directed by Anne Kauffman and starring Emmy® winner Merritt Wever, Tony® winner Frank Wood, and Tony® nominee Peter Friedman plus stunning newcomers Ben Rosenfield and Sophia Anne Caruso.  For more information on MCC Theater, please visit www.mcctheater.org.

The complete MCC Theater 2015-16 Main Stage Season:

New York Premiere

THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA McBRIDE

by Matthew Lopez

directed by Mike Donahue

First Preview: August 20, 2015

Opening: September 9, 2015

Closing: September 27, 2015

How can an Elvis impersonator become a winning drag queen in the Florida Panhandle? With an empty bank account and a pregnant wife, Casey’s going to have to answer that question fast in this music-filled comedy about finding your true voice.

Playwright Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man) and director Mike Donahue (The Wolfe Twins) make their MCC Theater debuts with The Legend of Georgia McBride in a production not too be missed.

New York Premiere

LOST GIRLS

by John Pollono

directed by Jo Bonney

First Preview: October 22, 2015

Opening: November 9, 2015

Closing: November 29, 2015

When their seventeen-year-old daughter goes missing during a winter storm, Maggie and Lou — former high school sweethearts, now divorced — are forced to confront the legacy of their past decisions. Lost Girls is a hard-hitting drama about a blue-collar family struggling to rise above their limited prospects to prevent history from repeating itself.

Lost Girls reunites playwright John Pollono and director Jo Bonney at MCC Theater following their collaboration on 2013’s hit thriller, Small Engine Repair.

New York Premiere

SMOKEFALL

by Noah Haidle

directed by Anne Kauffman

First Preview: February 3, 2016

Opening: February 22, 2016

Closing: March 13, 2016

Magical realism collides with manic vaudeville in a family drama unlike any you've ever seen. The Twins swap philosophy while awaiting their birth, Beauty eats dirt and doesn't speak, Father is about to drive away and never return, and a man named Footnote acts as our guide. Whipping from astonishing tenderness to profound humor and back again, this wholly original play uncovers the extraordinary family connections we all stretch and warp across the years but can never quite break. 

Smokefall marks the MCC Theater debut for playwright Noah Haidle (Mr. Marmalade) and the return of director Anne Kauffman (The Nether).

World Premiere

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE GYNELOGIC ONCOLOGY UNIT AT MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER OF NEW YORK

by Halley Feiffer

directed by Trip Cullman

First Preview: May 19, 2016

Opening: June 6, 2016

Closing: June 25, 2016

In A Funny Thing…, a foul-mouthed twenty-something comedienne and a middle-aged man embroiled in a nasty divorce are brought together unexpectedly when their cancer-stricken mothers become roommates in the hospital. Together, this unlikely duo must negotiate some of life’s biggest challenges… while making some of the world’s most inappropriate jokes. Can these two very lost people learn to laugh through their pain and lean on each other when all they really want to do is run away?

Halley Feiffer (Playwright, A Funny Thing…) is a writer and actress. Full-length plays include I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard (Atlantic Theater Company, directed by Trip Cullman), How To Make Friends and then Kill Them (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, directed by Kip Fagan), Sidney and LauraA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City and Valerie Sweet. Her plays have been developed by Second Stage Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, LAByrinth Theater Company, the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and elsewhere. She is currently working on commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, MTC / Sloan and Jen Hoguet Productions. She co-wrote and starred in the 2013 film He’s Way More Famous Than You and the upcoming webseries “What’s Your Emergency,” both directed by Michael Urie. She won the Theatre World Award for her performance in the Broadway revival of The House of Blue Leaves and was recently seen in the revival of Jon Robin Baitz’ The Substance of Fire at Second Stage, directed by Trip Cullman. She is thrilled to be back at the Atlantic, where she appeared last fall in Ethan Coen’s Women or Nothing, directed by David Cromer. She currently writes for the upcoming Starz series “The One Percent.”

Trip Cullman (Director, A Funny Thing…). Select NYC: Halley Feiffer’s I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard (Atlantic Theater Company), Simon Stephens’s Punk Rock (MCC), Jon Robin Baitz’s The Substance of Fire (Second Stage), Tarrell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy (Manhattan Theater Club), Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash’s Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theater Club and Union Square Theater), Paul Weitz’s Lonely, I’m Not (Second Stage), Leslye Headland’s Assistance(Playwrights Horizons), Adam Bock’s A Small Fire (Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk nom.), Adam Rapp’s The Hallway Trilogy: Nursing (Rattlestick),  Headland’s Bachelorette (Second Stage), Terrence McNally’s Some Men(Second Stage), Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God (Century Center), Bock’s The Drunken City (Playwrights Horizons), Weitz’s Roulette (EST), Jonathan Tolins’sThe Last Sunday In June (Rattlestick and Century Center), Bock’s Swimming In The Shallows (Second Stage), Gina Gionfriddo’s US Drag (stageFARM), and several productions with The Play Company. London: Bock’s The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, PA (Tricycle). Select regional: McCraney’s Choir Boy (Geffen and Alliance), John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation (Old Globe), Richard Greenberg’s The Injured Party (South Coast Rep), McNally’sUnusual Acts of Devotion (La Jolla Playhouse), Christopher Durang’s Betty’s Summer Vacation (Bay Street), Bess Wohl’s Touched (Williamstown Theater Festival). 

Matthew Lopez (Playwright, The Legend of Georgia McBride) is the author of The Whipping Man, one of the most widely-produced American plays of the last several years. The play premiered at Luna Stage Company and was produced in New York by Manhattan Theatre Club. Lopez was the recipient of the John Gassner New Play Award from the New York Outer Critics Circle for this production. Lopez’s play Somewhere premiered at the Old Globe and was subsequently presented at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, CA and at Hartford Stage Company, where he recently served as their AETNA New Voices Fellow. His play Reverberation will receive its world premiere at Hartford Stage this month, running Feb. 19 through March 15. The Legend of Georgia McBride was initially developed and then premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Matthew’s 9/11-themed play The Sentinels premiered in London at Headlong Theatre Company as part of their “Decade” project. Lopez is currently serving as the Denver Center Theatre’s inaugural Playwriting Fellow. Lopez has written for the HBO series “The Newsroom” and is currently adapting Javier Marias’ Your Face Tomorrow trilogy for the screen for Brad Pitt’s Plan B film company. Lopez holds new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, and Hartford Stage.

John Pollono (Playwright, Lost Girls), an actor and playwright from New England, wrote and co-stared in the hit thriller Small Engine Repair during the 2014/2014 Season at MCC Theater. He won the LA Ovation and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Awards for Best Play the 2011 LA production of Small Engine Repair, for which he also received the LADCC Award for Best Writing. As an actor, Pollono has appeared in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Major Crimes” and Showtime’s upcoming “Masters of Sex.” Last winter, he appeared in the series “Mob City,” written and directed by Frank Darabont. He is a founding member of Rogue Machine Theatre in Los Angeles, which produced Lost Girls and Small Engine Repair as well as his plays Lost and Found and Razorback.

Noah Haidle’s (Playwright, Smokefall) plays have premiered at the Goodman, Lincoln Center Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, the Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, South Coast Repertory, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Summer Play Festival in New York City, HERE Arts Center, as well as many others around the United States and abroad. He is a graduate of Princeton University and The Juilliard School, where he was a Lila Acheson Wallace playwright-in-residence.  He is the recipient of three Lincoln Center Lecompte Du Nouy awards, the 2005 Helen Merrill Award for emerging playwrights, the 2007 Claire Tow Award and an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Grant. He is published by Methuen in London, Suhrkamp in Berlin, and through Dramatists Play Service in New York City. His original screenplay Stand Up Guys, starring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin, produced by Lionsgate and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, opened in February 2013. He is currently working on commissions from Lincoln Center Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, and is set to direct his screenplay The Rodeo Clown, produced by Olive Productions and Mosaic. Haidle is a proud resident of Detroit.

MCC Theater – founded in 1986 as Manhattan Class Company – is driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would.  Led by Artistic Directors Robert LuPoneBernard TelseyWilliam Cantler, and Executive Director Blake West, MCC fulfills its mission by producing new work that challenges artists and rewards audiences, and by nurturing the development of playwrights and students through a variety of literary and education programs that enable nearly 1,200 New York City high school students to find – and use – their own unique voice each year through the creation and performance of original theater pieces.  MCC currently produces its annual season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street) and will open its own two-theater complex on West 52nd Street and 10th Avenue in 2017.  Notable productions include the recent hits Hand to God and Small Engine Repair; The Village Bike; The Other Place; Really Really; The Submission, winner of the inaugural Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for new American plays; The Pride; Fifty Words; Nixon's Nixon; The Grey Zone; the Tony Award-winning Frozen; the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit; the re-imagined production of the musical Carrie; and eight plays by Playwright-in-Residence Neil LaBute, including Fat Pig, Reasons to Be Pretty and Reasons to Be Happy.

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