Announcing The 2010-11 Season at the Public
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GATZ
New York Premiere
By Elevator Repair Service
Text: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Directed by John Collins
September 26 –October 31, 2010
One morning in the low-rent office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter of his desk. He starts to read it out loud, and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book or the book is transforming him.
“One of the most exciting and improbable accomplishments in theater in recent years” (The New York Times), GATZ is a theatrical and literary tour de force, not a retelling of the Gatsby story but an enactment of the novel itself. Over the course of 6 1/2 hours, Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece is delivered word for word, startlingly brought to life by a low-rent office staff in the midst of their inscrutable business operations. The cast of 13 actors includes Scott Shepherd (The Wooster Group’s Hamlet).
GATZ will be presented as a marathon theatrical event, with two intermissions and a dinner break, four times per week.

IN THE WAKE
New York Premiere
By Lisa Kron
Directed by Leigh Silverman
October 19 – November 21, 2010
“I’ve lost my bearings. I don’t know how to evaluate what’s happening. How do we know when the worst is over?”
Is Ellen referring to her relationship with Danny, or her hope for change? Obie Award winners Lisa Kron and Leigh Silverman (creators of Well) return to The Public with a witty, passionate and intellectually charged meditation on love and country. In Kron’s inimitable wry style, IN THE WAKE nimbly traverses the switchback turns in our current culture and its politics, as its characters struggle to negotiate the seismic changes rocking their personal landscape. Struggling to comprehend an unstable present and an unknowable future, they fail to notice rippling, bobbing reverberations of their actions left behind them in their wake.
IN THE WAKE was originally commissioned by Center Theatre Group and will receive its world premiere in Los Angeles on March 28, 2010.

The Tricycle Theatre Company presents

THE GREAT GAME: AFGHANISTAN
New York Premiere / NYU Skirball Center
By Richard Bean, Lee Blessing, David Edgar, David Greig, Amit Gupta, Ron Hutchinson, Stephen Jeffreys, Abi Morgan, Ben Ockrent, Simon Stephens, Colin Teevan, and Joy Wilkinson
Directed by Nicolas Kent and Indhu Rubasingham
Presented in association with NYU Skirball Center
Supported by the British Council
November 30-December 19, 2010
Through the eyes of 12 leading British and American playwrights and the voices of those actively involved in the war and on U.S. & NATO policy in Afghanistan, The Tricycle Theatre Company’s THE GREAT GAME: AFGHANISTAN explores, in three separate thrilling and provocative evenings, the culture and history of Afghanistan since Western involvement in 1842 to the present day. All three parts can be seen separately and do not need to be experienced in chronological order. This ambitious political and theatrical event was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement and unanimously awarded four stars (out of four) by 11 British newspapers. It was proclaimed “an inspirational highlight of the year!” by The Independent.
Part 1: Invasions & Independence – 1842-1930
Starts with the first Anglo-Afghan War of 1842 and moves to Afghan independence in the 1920s.
Part 2: Communism, The Mujahideen & The Taliban – 1979-1996
Continues the story from the Russian invasion, through to US/CIA arming of the Mujahideen to the coming of the Taliban.
Part 3: Enduring Freedom – 1996-2010
Starts with the events of 7/11 in Northern Afghanistan, through to the overthrow of Taliban, the aid agencies working in the country and the current war against the insurgents.
Parts 1, 2, and 3 can be seen separately and not necessarily in chronological order. Trilogy days will be held on weekends.

COMPULSION
World Premiere Production
By Rinne Groff
Directed by Oskar Eustis
A co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Yale Repertory Theatre
February 1-March 6, 2011
It is 1951 and Sid Silver is on a mission to be the guardian of one of the most moving and provocative accounts of the 20th century. Deeply moved by Anne Frank’s diary, he is driven to bring her story to the American masses by promoting the book’s publication and adapting the diary into a work of theater. Inspired by the story of Meyer Levin, COMPULSION brings playwright Rinne Groff and The Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis (The Ruby Sunrise) together again with a complex and inventive telling that is part historical fiction, part investigation into what makes a man obsess, and part exploration of an untold dimension of Anne Frank’s powerful and enduring legacy. “An enthralling drama of immense imagination, of emotional and moral complexity, and sparkling humor.” (Hartford Courant)

THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES
New York Premiere
By Tony Kushner
Directed by Michael Greif
A co-production with Signature Theatre Company in association with The Guthrie Theater
March 22-June 12, 2011
In the summer of 2007, Gus Marcantonio, a retired longshoreman and card-carrying member of the CPUSA (the American Communist Party), summons his children to the family’s Brooklyn brownstone for a series of shocking announcements. As Gus’s kids attempt to address a profound crisis in their difficult father’s difficult life, their own spectacularly messy problems – and spectacularly messed-up lovers, spouses and exes – follow them home. THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES explores revolutionary versus evolutionary change, the history of Italian-American radicalism, sex, sexual identity, prostitution, parenting, politics, theology, real estate, unions of all kinds, and debts both repaid and unpayable.

THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT
World Premiere
By Stephen Adly Guirgis
Presented by LAByrinth Theater Company and The Public Theater
Spring 2011
A new high-octane, verbal swordfest about love, fidelity, and misplaced haberdashery from Stephen Adly Guirgis (Little Flower of East Orange; The Last Days of Judas Iscariot). Jackie and Veronica have been in love since the 8th grade. But now, Jackie is on parole and living clean and sober under the guidance of his sponsor, Ralph D, while still living and loving with his volatile soul mate Veronica who is fiercely loving, but far from sober. Still, their love is pure. And true. Nothing can come between them — except a hat. Guirgis, as always, provides an eclectic and lively cast of characters seeking to “put away their childish things,” and their collective quest — and missteps — result in one of Guirgis’ most open-hearted, laugh-out-loud and poignant plays to date.