Download - Pittsburgh Playhouse

For Immediate Release
June 5, 2015
The REP announces 2015-2016 season
‘The Country House’ opens season with preview Sept. 3; single tickets go on sale Aug. 3
PITTSBURGH – The 2015-2016 season of The REP, Point Park University’s professional theatre company, will include critically
acclaimed and recent popular comedies and dramas by some of the best contemporary playwrights.
The season runs Sept. 4 through April 24, 2016, at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, 222 Craft Ave.
The 2015-2016 season opens with John Amplas directing The Country House, Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies’ comedy
about a theatrical family’s dramatic weekend. The REP will next present MacArthur Genius award-winner Tarell Alvin McCraney’s
coming-of-age drama, Choir Boy, directed by Tomé Cousin, and close the season with The Flick, Annie Baker’s 2014 Pulitzer
Prize-winner for drama, directed by Robert A. Miller.
The REP 2015-2016 season subscriptions, which save patrons more than 35 percent off single ticket prices, are available now and
can be purchased for $64-$72. Single tickets, ranging from $24-$30, will go on sale at 10 a.m., Monday, Aug. 3. Those who
purchase three subscriptions get the fourth free. To order a season subscription, contact the Pittsburgh Playhouse box office at
412.392.8000. For single tickets, when they become available, or more information about the Pittsburgh Playhouse, visit
www.pittsburghplayhouse.com.
The REP’s 2015-2016 season:
The Country House
By Donald Margulies
Directed by John Amplas
Sept. 4 – 20, 2015; preview Sept. 3
Rauh Theatre
Set in the summer home of a theatrical family, Margulies’ witty and compelling comedy tells the story of famous and longing-to-befamous artists tackling former loves, romantic outbursts and familial jealousies. When the play opened in New York last year, the
Wall Street Journal said it was “one of the most satisfying new American plays to reach Broadway in a decade.” Entertainment
Weekly called it “a valentine to the theater. … There are laughs aplenty.”
A professor with Point Park’s Conservatory of Performing Arts, John Amplas teaches all levels of acting and directing. He has
served as both an actor and director in countless Pittsburgh Playhouse productions dating back to 1972. He is one of the founding
members of the Playhouse Repertory Company and has served as associate artistic director since 1999. A few years ago, his
production of The Exonerated won the Governor’s Award produced in part with the Pittsburgh Innocence Project. He directed the
world premiere of Tammy Ryan’s Soldier’s Heart for The REP, and, last season, directed As You Like It for the Conservatory
Ronald Allan-Lindblom, Vice President and Artistic Director | Earl Hughes, Producing Director
www.pittsburghplayhouse.com
Theatre Company.
Choir Boy
By Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed Tomé Cousin
Sept. 25 – Oct. 11, 2015; preview Sept. 24
Studio Theatre
Featuring gospel music, McCraney’s stirring drama explores race, gender and other issues among members of a prestigious boys
prep school’s beloved a capella choir. “Believe the buzz. Choir Boy, the small but mighty coming-of-age play by Tarell Alvin
McCraney deserves its kudos,” wrote The New York Daily News.
Described by Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times as “one of the brightest American playwrights to come along in some
time,” McCraney was the Royal Shakespeare Company’s International Playwright in Residence in 2009-2011. He won several
prestigious awards, including London's Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, inaugural New York Times
Outstanding Playwright Award, and inaugural Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. His work has been performed at McCarter Theater in
Princeton, The Public Theater in New York, Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, and the Young Vic in London.
Point Park graduate Tomé Cousin is an internationally recognized director, choreographer, educator, performer and creator of
musical theater works, ballets, films, new opera, song cycles and art installations, as well as a published author. Cousin has
appeared on Broadway in Contact, A Free Man of Color, and Dreamgirls, national tours of Dreamgirls, My One and Only, and A
Chorus Line, and internationally in Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (Switzerland), The Who’s Tommy, La Cage aux Folles, Starlight
Express, and Tabaluga und Lilli (Germany). He serves as the directing supervisor for original director/choreographer Susan
Stroman’s Tony Award-winning musical Contact, having staged 12 companies worldwide including premieres in Hungary, Korea
and Poland. In 2014, he directed By the Way, Meet Vera Stark and Souvenir for The REP.
The Flick
By Annie Baker
Directed by Robert A. Miller
April 8 – 24, 2016; preview April 7
Studio Theatre
The 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Drama, The Flick is a charming, funny and keenly observant play about a run-down movie
theater’s three underpaid employees who tackle their interpersonal battles and deal with love as they mop the floors between
screenings.
In his review of The Flick, Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, “Ms. Baker, one of the freshest and most talented
dramatists to emerge Off Broadway in the past decade, writes with tenderness and keen insight about the way people make
messes of their lives. … Ms. Baker specializes in moments of intimacy that are awkward, hilarious and ineffably touching. … Her
writing is a great blessing to performers.”
Acclaimed Hollywood producer, director and screenwriter, Robert A. Miller, is best known for producing The Crucible, nominated
for two Academy Awards and featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Joan Allen and Paul Scofield. Miller also produced
Focus, starring William H. Macy, Laura Dern and David Paymer. His directorial credits include Company of Angels in Hollywood,
and Bend in the River, a live PBS broadcast featuring Ken Kesey. Miller directed several plays for The REP, including his first-ever
production of his father’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Death of a Salesman in 2008. He also directed The REP’s world premieres of
The Umbrella Man in 2010 and A Child’s Guide to Heresy in 2011, and is a producer of the movie The Umbrella Man, filmed in
2012 in Pittsburgh and Dallas. Miller has served as a Distinguished Master Artist in Residence at the Conservatory of Performing
Arts since 2009.
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Contact:
Ramesh Santanam | Director of Marketing & Public Relations
[email protected] | 412.392.8106
Laura Greenawalt | Marketing & Public Relations Coordinator
[email protected] | 412.392.3175