Every day is opening night.

Williamstown Theatre Festival Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Aaron Meier
rick@omdkc.com / aaron@omdkc.com
212 695 7400

Audible Contact:
Jessica Shoffel / Dana Honor
shoffel@audible.com / dhonor@audible.com

Chris Boneau / Michelle Farabaugh
cboneau@bbbway.com / mfarabaugh@bbbway.com
917 754 4247

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

TONY AWARD^®-WINNING
WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
AND
AUDIBLE
ANNOUNCE REHEARSALS AND REMOTE RECORDING SESSIONS COMMENCE FOR FOUR PRODUCTIONS
AS PART OF THE UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION
TO PRODUCE THE WILLIAMSTOWN FESTIVAL SEASON ON AUDIBLE

COMPLETE CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR
“CHONBURI INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & BUTTERFLY CLUB”

WORLD PREMIERE PLAY BY
SHAKINA NAYFACK

DIRECTED BY
LAURA SAVIA

CAST TO INCLUDE NINE ACTORS OF TRANS EXPERIENCE

FULL ENSEMBLE TO FEATURE
IVORY AQUINO, KATE BORNSTEIN, LIZ LARK BROWN,
ANNIE GOLDEN, BIANCA LEIGH, TELLY LEUNG, DANA LEVINSON,
POOYA MOHSENI, SHAKINA NAYFACK, ANGELICA ROSS,
ITA SEGEV, JASON TAM, AND SAMY NOUR YOUNES

New York, NY (July 21, 2020) – Today, Williamstown Theatre Festival (Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director) and Audible (Kate Navin, Artistic Producer, Audible Theater) announced rehearsals and remote recording sessions have commenced for four productions as part of the upcoming Williamstown Theatre Festival season produced by Audible, the world’s largest producer and provider of original spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks.

The four plays – Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club by Shakina Nayfack, directed by Laura Savia; Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler, directed by Susan Stroman; Animals by Stacy Osei-Kuffour, directed by Whitney White; and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, directed by Robert O’Hara – will begin remote recording sessions as early as next week. Exact release dates on Audible and additional information about the full season of seven shows including casting will be announced shortly.

In addition, rehearsals are now underway for Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club which features a cast that includes nine actors of trans experience. The complete cast features the playwright, Shakina Nayfack, alongside Ivory Aquino, Kate Bornstein, Liz Lark Brown, SAG Award^® winner Annie Golden, Bianca Leigh, Telly Leung, Dana Levinson, Pooya Mohseni, Angelica Ross, Ita Segev, Grammy Award^® nominee Jason Tam, and Samy Nour Younes.

In Shakina Nayfack’s world premiere play, a vibrant, international group of transgender women band together at a hotel in Thailand to confront the challenges and joys of gender confirmation surgery. Despite the group’s warm welcome, Kina (Nayfack) prepares for her life-altering operation all alone. But a caring nurse (Ivory Aquino), a wise couple (Kate Bornstein and Annie Golden), and a karaoke-loving bellhop (Telly Leung) may be exactly who she needs to ignite her truest sense of self. WTF Associate Artistic Director Laura Savia directs this spirited comedy about one woman who tests the bonds of an unlikely sisterhood.

As previously announced, this unprecedented collaboration between two industry leaders, forged during and in response to a fraught moment in history, preserves the festival season in a different format, provides continued work for the artists involved in the festival season, and produces a body of work that will be made available for global Audible listeners to enjoy and experience. It also marks the first time that an external theatrical season of work will be produced on Audible. In addition to being available for Audible listeners, the Williamstown Festival season on Audible will be made available to Williamstown Festival subscribers and donors. For more information, please visit www.wtfestival.org. For more information about Audible Theater, which makes outstanding performances and powerful storytelling available to millions of people all over the world, please visit www.audible.com/theater.

WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL

For over six decades, Williamstown Theatre Festival, recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and the Commonwealth Award for Achievement, has brought emerging and professional theatre artists together to create a thrilling summer festival of premiere work alongside fresh, new productions of the western canon, accompanying cultural events including COMMUNITY WORKS and Late- Night Cabarets, and readings and workshops of new plays. Under Artistic Director Mandy Greenfield, WTF launched the Andrew Martin-Weber New Play and Musical Commissioning Program, through which theatre artists, including Jocelyn Bioh, Nathan Alan Davis, Halley Feiffer, Justin Levine, Matthew Lopez, Jiehae Park, Benjamin Scheuer, and many others, create new work supported by a year-round play development program. WTF runs unmatched training programs for new generations of theatre talent, and artists and productions shaped at WTF fill theatres in New York, London, and around the country each season. Williamstown Theatre Festival’s productions of The Bridges of Madison County, The Elephant Man, Fool for Love, Living on Love, and The Visit enjoyed critically acclaimed runs on Broadway, with The Elephant Man and The Visit receiving Tony Award nominations for Best Revival of a Play and Best Revival of a Musical, respectively. WTF’s world premiere productions of Cost of Living (winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Actually, Paradise Blue, and Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow played acclaimed Off-Broadway runs. In the 2019-20 theatrical season, Williamstown Theatre Festival is represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside, The Rose Tattoo, Grand Horizons, Seared, Selling Kabul, and Unknown Soldier.

AUDIBLE

Audible Theater makes outstanding performances and powerful storytelling available to millions of people all over the world. As part of this initiative, Audible has produced Girls & Boys with Carey Mulligan, The Half-Life of Marie Curie with Kate Mulgrew, Harry Clarke starring Billy Crudup, Billy Crystal’s Have A Nice Day with Annette Bening and Kevin Kline, the revival of Aasif Mandvi’s Sakina’s Restaurant, and many others at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City. In May 2018, Audible announced that the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village will serve as its creative home for live performances in New York. Audible hosts and produces a wide variety of live performances at the Minetta Lane including dramatic plays, comedic shows, engaging panel discussions, and more, with Audible members receiving exclusive access to discounted tickets and related audio content.

Audible was co-producer for the Broadway transfer of the Tony Award-nominated Latin History for Morons written by and starring John Leguizamo and for Sea Wall /A Life starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge. The initiative also saw the release of John Lithgow’s Stories By Heart, Judith Light’s All The Ways To Say I Love You, Sharon Washington’s Feeding The Dragon, and more. Since June 2017, Audible has commissioned 25 theater playwrights to receive support from its $5 million Emerging Playwrights Fund dedicated to developing innovative English-language works from around the globe. The $5 million fund enables the creation of original plays driven by language and voice, keeping with Audible’s core commitment to elevating listening experiences through powerful performances and extraordinary vocal storytelling.

Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the world’s largest producer and provider of spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible content includes more than 525,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers.

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