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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
MCC THEATER’S
ANNUAL GALA
MISCAST 2019
TO HONOR
MCC BOARD MEMBERS
MARIANNE MILLS & HAROLD NEWMAN

MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2019
AT THE MANHATTAN CENTER’S HAMMERSTEIN BALLROOM

REN SANTIAGO TO RECEIVE MCC THEATER YOUTH COMPANY ALUMNI AWARD

GALA TICKETS AND TABLES ON SALE TODAY

SHOW-ONLY TICKETS ON SALE EARLY 2019

New York, NY (November 8, 2018) – MCC THEATER (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director) is excited to announce that this year’s Miscast gala, an annual showstopper of the theater season, is set for Monday, April 1, 2019 at The Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center (311 West 34th Street). As in previous years, MCC will honor an artist who embodies MCC’s commitment to bold creative choices that spark conversations, to be announced shortly. Additional information, including cast, to follow.

In addition, MCC Theater will honor longtime Board members Marianne Mills and Harold Newman, for their invaluable contributions to the institution. Their work has included Co-Chairing The Campaign for MCC Theater, the $45 million fundraising initiative to support building The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, MCC’s new two-theater complex in Hell’s Kitchen, as well as unprecedented institutional program expansion. MCC’s new home will include the 245-seat Newman Mills Theater, named for Harold Newman and Marianne Mills in recognition of their leadership support of the campaign.

“MCC Theater has two truly wonderful champions in Marianne and Hal. They have led the way again and again with over three decades of service between them as officers and members of the Board. MCC is where it is today in large part thanks to Marianne and Hal’s service, leadership, and generosity. For those reasons, it means so much to us that the Newman Mills Theater in our new home bears their names. Their counsel has been profound and we are elated to count them as friends. We are thrilled to pay tribute to them at Miscast,” said Robert LuPone, Co-Artistic Director of MCC Theater.

Finally, MCC Theater will honor performer and playwright Ren Santiago with the 2018 MCC Theater Youth Company Alumni Award. Santiago was a member of the MCC Theater Youth Company from 2007-2011.

“When Ren started in the MCC Youth Company in 2007 we knew immediately that she found a passion in theater. The last 12 years have revealed the expansiveness of her generosity as an artist and as a mentor to the YC members who have come behind her.  It’s a privilege to have met her as a student, and now know her as a friend.” said Will Cantler, Co-Artistic Director of MCC Theater.

MCC Theater’s annual Miscast gala is one of the most exciting and unique theater events in town. Broadway’s hottest stars perform songs from roles in which they would never be cast.

All 2018/19 MCC subscribers will have early access to Miscast 2019 show-only tickets, 2 tickets per subscription. Show-only mezzanine level tickets will be on sale to the general public in early 2019. To purchase gala tickets, please visit www.mcctheater.org, or contact Nick Vermane at (212) 727-7722, ext. 232 or via email at nvername@mcctheater.org.

“The year’s funniest revue!” – The Huffington Post
“One of The Year’s Most Galvanizing Theater Moments!” – The New York Times

Proceeds from Miscast 2019 will support MCC Theater’s mission to develop and produce exciting work Off-Broadway, as well as its Youth Company and partnerships with New York City public high schools, and MCC’s literary development work with emerging playwrights.

Last year, Miscast 2018 honored Laurie Metcalf.

Performers from past years include: Uzo Aduba, Beth Behrs, Megan Hilty, Cynthia Erivo, Raúl Esparza, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, Laura Benanti, Jesse L. Martin, Zosia Mamet, Aaron Tveit, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jane Krakowski and many others. Special guests have included, Andy Cohen, Charles Busch, Helen Mirren, Lewis Black, Chris Noth, Edward Albee, Kathleen Turner, Jerry Stiller, Mo Rocca, Isaac Mizrahi, and many more.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ren Dara Santiago is a Fila-Rican playwright from Harlem. Something in the Balete Tree was written in 2018 with the support found in Gingold Theatrical Groups’ The Speaker’s Corner, Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writer’s Group; paired with mentor-playwright Erin Courtney and the Playwriting Mentorship Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm mentored by Adam Bock.  The Siblings Play has had development at The Cherry Lane Theatre (Mentor Project), Labyrinth Theater, MCC Theater, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. She is a guest teaching artist at The National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Ren is a former Artistic Producer and founding member of Middle Voice at Rattlestick and an eternal member of The Baldwin Project by Lucy Thurber, who has mentored her since adolescence.

MCC Theater is one of New York’s leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, the tenets of collaboration, education, and community are at the core of MCC Theater’s programming. One of the only theaters in the country led continuously by its founders, Artistic Directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, and William Cantler, MCC fulfills its mission through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

MCC Theater’s celebrated productions include Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play; Penelope Skinner’s The Village Bike; Robert Askins’ Hand to God (Broadway transfer; five 2015 Tony Award® nominations including Best Play); John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair; Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Really Really; Sharr White’s The Other Place (Broadway transfer); Jeff Talbott’s The Submission (Laurents/Hatcher Award); Neil LaBute’s Reasons to Be Happy, reasons to be pretty (Broadway transfer, three 2009 Tony Award® nominations, including Best Play), Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, and All The Ways To Say I Love You; Michael Weller’s Fifty Words; Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride; Bryony Lavery’s Frozen (Broadway transfer; four 2004 Tony Award® nominations including Best Play, Tony Award® for Best Featured Actor); Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone; Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living (2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); Margaret Edson’s Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize); and the musicals Coraline, Carrie, and Ride the Cyclone. Many plays developed and produced by MCC have gone on to productions throughout the country and around the world.

Blake West joined the company in 2006 as Executive Director. MCC will begin production in January, 2019 in its new home in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, unifying the company’s activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming.

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