Public Address

Mmm, craggy: Stephen Rea appears at the Public this season

The Public Theater had just released their line-up for the 2007-2008 season. I do wish there were a few more items on it, The Public has so very many spaces, but it’s a very impressive list, mixing established artists with less recognizable ones and offering a play or two that they’ve helped to develop or showcase. Among other shows, the Public will remount the Wooster Group’s Hamlet, and new plays by Caryl Churchill (yay!), Richard Nelson (eh), and newcomer Tarell Alvin McCraney. And, giving me yet another chance to indulge my ardor for somewhat weathered older men, Stephen Rea will star in a new Sam Shepard.

The full line-up, after the jump:

2007-08 Season

THE WOOSTER GROUP

HAMLET
NEW YORK PREMIERE / FALL

Presented by The Public Theater in association with Arts at St. Ann ’s

Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Elizabeth LeCompte

With Dominique Bousquet, Ari Fliakos, Alessandro Magania, Daniel Pettrow, Scott Shepherd, Casey Spooner, Kate Valk, Judson Williams

Called “American theater’s most inspired company” by Ben Brantley of The New York Times, the legendary Wooster Group is the most widely-renowned and acclaimed experimental ensemble of its time. With their trademark use of video, sound and precise physical language, the Wooster Group takes on Shakespeare as you’ve never seen it before – a wildly inventive, not-to-be missed artistic event.

THE BROTHERS SIZE
WORLD PREMIERE / FALL

Co-produced with The Foundry Theatre

Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed by Tea Alagic

Playing fast and loose with West African myths, The Brothers Size brings contemporary rhythms together with traditions of ceremonial presentation to tell the modern-day story of the Size brothers – Ogun, an auto mechanic and Oshoosi, a recent parolee. This breakout hit from The Public’s 2007 Under The Radar Festival is an imaginatively fresh new drama, in which the audience is at once the community, the witness and the judge.

“There is no doubting McCraney’s exceptional gifts as a dramatist.”

—Hilton Als, New Yorker

“An absorbing and emotionally resonant drama…McCraney has a long career ahead of him.”—Jason Zinoman, The New York Times

YELLOW FACE
WORLD PREMIERE / FALL

Co-produced with Center Theatre Group

Written by David Henry Hwang
Directed by Leigh Silverman

With Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Kathryn Layng, Hoon Lee, Tony Torn

David Henry Hwang puts himself center stage with alter-ego DHH, telling his side of the explosive controversy stirred up when he led the protest against the hiring of Jonathan Pryce in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon. Truth and fiction are hard to separate as Hwang gives us a funny and moving backstage look at his search to confront the roles that race and ethnicity play in America .

“That rarity in theater, a pungent play of ideas with a big heart.”—Variety

“A captivating new play…in which fact and fantasy mix and mingle like nobody’s business.”— Los Angeles Times

CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM

WORLD PREMIERE / WINTER

Written by Richard Nelson

With Brian Dennehy, David Strathairn, Maria Tucci

The country you love and the values it represents are being destroyed by a misguided leader. You can continue to live in relative comfort by not involving yourself, or you can take action to save the democracy you love. Set outside of Rome in the villas and hillsides of Tusculum , Richard Nelson continues his revelatory exploration of history with a new play that chronicles those entangled in Julius Caesar’s world of manipulation and power.

DRUNK ENOUGH TO SAY I LOVE YOU?
U.S. PREMIERE / SPRING

Co-produced with The Royal Court Theatre

Written by Caryl Churchill
Directed by James Macdonald

Jack would do anything for Sam. Sam would do anything. Don’t miss the ground-breaking new play by one of theatre’s preeminent voices.

“Ingeniously elliptical…genuinely funny. Churchill puts the sexuality of politics centre stage.”—The Guardian

“Drama at its most austerely pure…Churchill is unquestionably the most influential dramatist since Pinter.”—Variety

Little Flower of East Orange

World Premiere / Spring

Co-produced with the LAByrinth Theater Company

Written by Stephen Adly Guirgis

Directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman

The Public Theater and LAByrinth Theater Company join forces to reunite the powerhouse writer/director team behind such groundbreaking urban dramas as The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Jesus Hopped the A Train. Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis and director Philip Seymour Hoffman bring us their latest collaboration, an inter-generational ghost story set in an upper Manhattan charity hospital.

KICKING A DEAD HORSE

U.S. PREMIERE / SUMMER

Co-produced with The Abbey Theatre ( Ireland )

Written and directed by Sam Shepard
With Stephen Rea

We are proud to welcome back one of the American Theater’s greatest treasures and an artist deeply rooted in The Public’s history. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Academy Award nominee Sam Shepard brings us an arresting new play about the myth of the West, a Manhattan art dealer and a dead horse. Featuring Academy Award and Tony nominee Stephen Rea.

“Excellent deadpan humor, delivered brilliantly.”–Variety