The Wig's The Thing

Signature's photographer Gregory Costanzo set up a time-lapse camera backstage at The Orphans' Home Cycle to capture Wig Supervisor Karine Ivey getting Hallie Foote's wig ready for the performance. Check it out! (Warning -- it moves very fast!)

Signature Theatre Backstage | Orphans' Cycle Wig-o-rama from Gregory Costanzo on Vimeo.

New York Premiere of Tony Kushner's Newest Play Will Be Part of Signature's 2010-11 Season

NEW YORK PREMIERE OF
TONY KUSHNER’S
THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO
CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES
TO BE PRESENTED IN THE 2010-2011 SEASON BY
THE PUBLIC THEATER AND SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE GUTHRIE THEATER

PRODUCTION TO BE DIRECTED BY MICHAEL GREIF
MARCH 22-JUNE 12, 2011 AT THE PUBLIC THEATER

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) and Signature Theatre Company (Founding Artistic Director James Houghton; Executive Director Erika Mallin) announced today that the New York premiere of Tony Kushner’s THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES will be presented in the 2010-2011 season in a co-production between The Public Theater and Signature Theatre Company, in association with the Guthrie Theater. Michael Greif, who directed the world premiere at the Guthrie in April, 2009, will direct the New York premiere, which will play March 22-June 12, 2011 at The Public Theater. Casting will be announced at a later date.

The Public Theater and Artistic Director Oskar Eustis have a long history with Tony Kushner, dating back to 1986 when Eustis, then Artistic Director of the Eureka Theater in San Francisco, directed Kushner's first professional production, A Bright Room Called Day (later seen at the Public Theater), and commissioned Angels in America, which he then directed in its world premier at the Mark Taper Forum. The Public Theater also developed Kushner’s musical Caroline, or Change and then transferred it to Broadway in 2004. In 2006, Kushner’s translation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children was presented at Shakespeare in the Park.

Signature Theatre Company is the first theatre company to devote an entire season to the work of a single playwright, including re-examinations of past writings as well as New York and world premieres. By championing in-depth explorations of a living playwright’s body of work, the Company delivers an intimate and immersive journey into the playwright’s singular vision. Signature’s 20th Anniversary Season, devoted to Tony Kushner, also includes the first New York revival of Angels in America and another production to be announced.

Signature was in residence at The Public Theatre for two seasons in 1995-1997, but THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE marks the first time the two theatres have partnered to present a co-production.

In the summer of 2007, Gus Marcantonio, a retired longshoreman, summons his children to the family’s Brooklyn brownstone for a series of shocking announcements. THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES explores revolution, radicalism, marriage, sex, prostitution, politics, real estate, unions of all kinds and debts both repaid and unpayable.

Tony Kushner commented, "I have a long relationship to The Public Theater, beginning of course as an audience member when I first arrived in New York and then as a playwright, through A Bright Room Called Day, produced by Joe Papp and directed by Michael Greif; The Dybbuk, produced by George C. Wolfe; Caroline, or Change, which George produced and directed; and Mother Courage and Her Children, produced by Oskar Eustis. Oskar and I have been working together closely since the start of my career. The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide, or as I’ve been abbreviating it, iHo, has deep roots in an ongoing conversation with Oskar about life, politics and art that’s essential to my thinking and writing. Since I began working on it, this play has felt to me like it belonged at The Public.”

“There’s no theater on earth I admire more than the Signature, both for its faith in American playwrights and for its magnificent productions of our plays. Jim Houghton has enormous talent and daring, a man of marvelous collegiality and seriousness of purpose. I’m thrilled and honored to have been offered a Signature season. Now that it’s almost here, I’m also terrified, but in the nicest way. Since I began working on this play, I felt it would make a perfect choice for the new play slot in my Signature season. iHo opening in New York as part of both The Public’s and Signature’s season, co-produced by Oskar and Jim, feels so much like having my cake and eating it too that I’m embarrassed by my good fortune, and very happy."

“Tony Kushner has been a crucial part of the Public Theater family for 20 years,” said The Public Theater’s Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. “Tony's work is fiercely intelligent, deeply moral and wildly entertaining. THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL'S GUIDE is a classic American family play, but his canvas is as large as America itself. The Public is proud to join with Signature Theater Company to produce this essential work.”

“Tony Kushner is an essential voice in the American theatre and I’ve long hoped for the opportunity to do a season together,” commented Signature Founding Artistic Director James Houghton. “We’re thrilled that Signature’s 20th season will mark the 20th anniversary of Tony’s seminal work, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes and the New York premiere of his crushing and thrilling new play, THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. We look forward to partnering with Oskar Eustis and our friends at the Public on this production and it is especially exciting to have Michael Greif, who has a history with both companies, at the helm of this important work.”

"We are enormously proud of THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL'S GUIDE, having commissioned it for the Guthrie Theater's three-month long Kushner Celebration in 2009,” said Guthrie Director Joe Dowling. “Michael Greif's original production was the centerpiece of our highly successful Celebration and I'm thrilled that its journey continues. I wish Tony, Michael, Jim and Oskar much success in the New York production."

TONY KUSHNER (Playwright). His plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Angels In America, Parts One and Two; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori (Public Theater/Broadway); and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. His adaptations include Corneille's The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, and Brecht's The Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children (Public Theater). Kushner’s films include “Angels In America,” and Munich. His books include Brundibar, illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak, 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict (co-edited with Alisa Solomon). Kushner has received the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award, an Oscar nomination, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Olivier Award, two Evening Standard Awards, and is the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.

MICHAEL GREIF (Director) directed the world premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures at The Guthrie Theater last April. He will be directing The Winter’s Tale for The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park this summer as well as Angels in America for Signature Theatre. His other Public Theater credits include the 2007 Shakespeare in the Park revival of Romeo and Juliet, Diana Son’s Satellites, the launch performance of Suzan-Lori Parks’s 365 Days / 365 Plays, Fucking A, Dogeaters (Obie), Marisol, Pericles, Casanova, A Bright Room Called Day, and Machinal (Obie). For Signature Theatre Company, he directed John Guare’s A Few Stout Individuals and Landscape of the Body. Greif’s Broadway credits include Jonathan Larson’s Rent (Obie Award, Tony nom.), Grey Gardens (Tony nomination) and Next to Normal (Tony nomination). He is an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop, where his credits include Cavedweller, Bright Lights, Big City, and Rent. His other Off-Broadway credits include Boy’s Life (Second Stage), Neil LaBute’s The Distance from Here and A Very Common Procedure (MCC), Neal Bell’s Spatter Pattern (Playwrights Horizons), Beauty of the Father (MTC), Mr. Marmalade (Roundabout), Betty Rules (Zipper), and Bell’s Monster (CSC). Greif has a longstanding association with the Williamstown Theatre Festival where his credits include Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, The Seagull, Street Scene, Tonight At 8:30 and Once in a Lifetime. He was Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse from 1995-1999 where he directed Our Town, Sweet Bird of Youth, Diana Son’s Boy, Randy Newman’s Faust (also Goodman), Kushner’s Slavs (also Taper), and Thérèse Raquin.

THE PUBLIC THEATER (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation’s preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public’s mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe’s Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 42 Tony Awards, 149 Obies, 40 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. The Public has brought 52 shows to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk; On the Town; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Well; Passing Strange; and, most recently, the current Tony Award-winning revival of Hair. www.publictheater.org.

SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director) was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is the first theatre company to devote a season to the work of a single playwright. Signature has presented entire seasons of Edward Albee, Lee Blessing, Horton Foote, Maria Irene Fornes, John Guare, Bill Irwin, Adrienne Kennedy, Romulus Linney, Charles Mee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, August Wilson, Lanford Wilson and the historic Negro Ensemble Company. The twentieth season features the work of Tony Kushner. Since 2005, Signature has presented world-class theatre at an affordable price through The Signature Ticket Initiative, offering subsidized $20 tickets through 2011. This program is made possible by the lead sponsorship of Time Warner Inc. Signature, its productions, and its resident writers have been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize, Lucille Lortel Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and AUDELCO Awards, among many other distinctions. Signature Theatre Company recently announced a new, permanent home beginning in 2012. The Frank Gehry-designed Signature Center on W. 42nd Street will feature three programs: the Master Playwright s Residency, which explores major bodies of work; the Legacy Program, which celebrates previous Signature artists, and the Emerging Playwrights Residency, which features early and mid-career playwrights. www.signaturetheatre.org.

GUTHRIE THEATER (Joe Dowling, Director) was founded by Sir Tyrone Guthrie in 1963 and is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. With annual attendance of nearly 500,000 people, the Guthrie Theater presents a mix of classic plays and contemporary work on its three stages. Under the artistic leadership of Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie continues to set a national standard for excellence in theatrical production and performance. In 2009 the Guthrie devoted all three of its stages to the work of Tony Kushner for simultaneous productions of Caroline, or Change, Tiny Kushner and the world premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures drawing more than 90,000 visitors for an unprecedented three-month celebration. In 2006, the Guthrie opened its new home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the Guthrie Theater houses three state-of-the-art stages, shops, classrooms and dramatic public lobbies. www.guthrietheater.org.

Dramaturg's Diary: Catching up with Alumni

I have been feeling immersed in Signature alumni playwrights lately, having had the honor and pleasure connecting and re-connecting with many of them at Signature’s Annual Gala on March 1st. Or, maybe they have also been on my mind because they have been positively ubiquitous these past couple of seasons, with new and past works being produced all over the country, as well as New York and abroad. Therefore, as we wrap up the 2009-2010 Season, I thought that a suitable subject for the revival of “Dramaturg’s Diary,” would be highlighting some of the recent work of our prolific past Playwrights-in-Residence.

This season saw a wealth of brand new work from our playwrights. In January 2010, Charles Mee (2007-2008) collaborated with the SITI Company and Martha Graham Dance Company on American Document, inspired by Graham’s 1938 piece of the same name. A workshop of American Document was presented in the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater and will be seen in June at The Joyce Theatre.

Lee Blessing’s (1992-1993) new play, When We Go Upon the Sea, opens at Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre Company on April 19th. Signature’s bookstore is now stocking Romulus Linney: Maverick of the American Theatre by John Fleming, a new study of Signature’s Founding Playwright-in-Residence’s (1991-1992) life and work. New York’s Abingdon Theatre Company presented the world premiere of Mr. Linney’s Love Drunk in April 2009. Next season Lincoln Center Theater will present the world premiere of John Guare’s A Free Man of Color, beginning in October in the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

And of course, Horton Foote’s (1994-1995) The Orphans’ Home Cycle continues to run at Signature’s The Peter Norton Space, in a co-production with Hartford Stage.

Many plays by our playwrights found their way to New York for the first time this season, or can be anticipated soon. Sam Shepard’s Ages of the Moon recently closed at Atlantic Theatre Company. Mr. Mee’s Fetes de la Nuit was presented at The Ohio Theatre in February, and Limonade Tous Les Jours will arrive in April. Next season, Edward Albee’s Me, Myself, and I will open Playwrights Horizons' 2010-2011 Season. Further afield, Paula Vogel’s (2004-2005) A Civil War Christmas was seen at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company in November of 2009.

Revisits to our writers’ past work have been rampant all over the country (and abroad!) this season and next season. The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) School of Theater celebrated Adrienne Kennedy (1995-1996) with examinations of her plays Funnyhouse of a Negro, June and Jean in Concert, and Sun: A Poem for Malcolm X Inspired by His Murder. Signature is also selling limited edition autographed hard copies of Ms. Kennedy’s People Who Led to My Plays in our lobby bookstore at The Peter Norton Space. The New Group gave another look to Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, which closed this past weekend.

This week INTAR Theatre, in association with NYU’s Department of English, will begin the 2010 New York Fornes Festival, in honor of the upcoming 80th birthday of Maria Irene Fornes (1999-2000), with presentations of Ms. Fornes’s work all over Manhattan. Plays include Fefu and Her Friends, Successful Life of 3, What of the Night?, and a screening of the film, "The Rest I Make Up": Documenting Irene.

Currently running in New York is Arthur Miller’s (1997-1998) A View from the Bridge, which can be seen on Broadway at the Cort Theatre until April 4th. After that it will make room for August Wilson’s (2006-2007) Fences, which begins on April 14th. Also in April, Charles Mee’s collage ode to collage artist Robert Raushenberg, bobrauschenbergamerica, arrives at Dance Theatre Workshop.

Signature playwrights have been active overseas as well: if you happen to be in London, John Guare’s (1998-1999) Six Degrees of Separation can currently be seen at The Old Vic and Lanford Wilson’s (2002-2003) Serenading Louie is running at The Donmar Warehouse. Mr. Wilson’s Fifth of July will be seen at Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer, The Hot L Baltimore at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in March of 2011, and a revival of Talley’s Folly will hit Broadway next season as well.

Mr. Albee will also be honored at Washington D.C.’s Arena Stage, who will celebrate Mr. Albee over the course of three months with readings of all thirty of his plays and productions of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and At Home at the Zoo. Finally, Chicago’s Court Theatre will present Samm-Art Williams’s (NEC Season, 2008-2009) Home in November 2010.

In addition to their thriving writing careers, many of our playwrights give of themselves as teachers, mentors, producers, directors, even performers. Leslie Lee (NEC Season, 2008-2009), when he has not been attending every Signature alumni event and opening night this season, has been managing director of The Negro Ensemble Company, who presented his Sundown Names and Night Gone Things at the Castillo Theatre in May 2009. Bill Irwin (2003-2004) was featured in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the musical Bye Bye Birdie, which ran from September 2009 until January 2010 at the Henry Miller Theatre on Broadway. Charles Fuller (NEC Season, 2008-2009) has been supporting new work and the rising generation of playwrights, mentoring The Belle of Belfast by Nate Rufus Edelman as part of The Cherry Lane Mentor Project.

I’m afraid this list does not even scratch the surface of our playwright’s activity this season and next. Suffice to say that it seems to have been a banner year for our writers. Congratulations to all of our past Playwrights-in-Residence on their current and future projects, and looking forward to seeing you at the theatre.

The Reviews Are In for ORPHANS' HOME CYCLE Part 3: The Story of a Family

The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage opened at Signature Theatre on January 26, 2010, and the critics loved it just as much as they did the first two installments!

Life, Death and Family in Foote’s Texas
Ben Brantley, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Nobody in Harrison, Tex., needs to ask for whom the bell tolls. Not, at least, in 1918, the year that gives the title to the opening work in the reverberant final installment of Horton Foote’s “Orphans’ Home Cycle” at the Peter Norton Space on West 42nd Street.

Again and again, the iron tongue clangs from the church steeple, and people in town realize that the flu has taken another victim, most likely someone they’re acquainted with. Odds are they’ll know the name of the deceased — and the time and place of death — before the tolling stops.

The three short dramas that make up “The Story of a Family,” which opened on Tuesday night, are both the starkest and most sentimental of this lovingly painted life-and-times portrait, directed by Michael Wilson in a co-production of the Hartford Stage and the Signature Theater Company.

More than its predecessors, “Family” brings home the sense of how tenuous existence was in western America in the early 20th century, and how desperate it could become. Small wonder that people clung to the notions of their extended families as if they were the very tree of life.

One of the pleasures of repertory is watching how actors become different characters. Here, under Mr. Wilson’s gliding direction, this is usually achieved with a simple, restrained grace, acknowledging that the canvas matters more than the figures within it.”


Click here to read full review


Foote’s Fine ‘Family’ Goes the Whole Nine Yards
Elisabeth Vincentelli, NEW YORK POST

With a total running time now up to nine hours, Horton Foote’s "The Orphans' Home Cycle" finally draws to an end with the opening of its third and last three-act installment, "The Story of a Family." It's been a long, steady ride since the first one opened in November, and reaching the destination brings a fulfilling sense of completion.

Foote doesn't neatly tie up loose ends, but it doesn't matter because what he does do is provide an ending that feels as natural and satisfying as a river reaching the sea.

The playwright gave himself a big challenge by making Horace a "good man" -- the kind of stoic, reliable citizen you don't necessarily associate with pulse-quickening drama. But "The Orphans' Home Cycle" is unrelenting in its own gentle way, and we easily become hooked to its succession of seemingly mundane events, quarrels and small pleasures.

Click here to read full review

‘Orphans’ Home Cycle’ offers pleasures worth the wait
Joe Dziemianowicz, DAILY NEWS

Superior acting, direction and design work — hallmarks of the first two segments of "The Orphans' Home Cycle" — are front and center in this final installment.

The show is filled with riches. To his credit, Foote, who died last March, doesn't tie things up with a pretty bow — rather with something more uncertain. The line that lingers near the end is a simple one: "A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it?"

It is. So is this theatrical event."

Click here to read the full review


‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle’ reaches a satisfying end
Mike Kuchwara, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The story of Horace Robedaux comes to an emotionally and theatrically satisfying conclusion in Part 3 of "The Orphans' Home Cycle," Horton Foote's monumental, nine-hour saga of one man's journey to adulthood.

After already having spent six hours with the man, Horace has, by this third collection of one acts, become an old friend. He anchors Foote's intricately woven tapestry of life in fictional Harrison, Texas, during the first three decades of the 20th century.

Part 3, which opened Tuesday at off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company, is called "The Story of a Family," and is directed — like Parts 1 and 2 — by Michael Wilson with stunning clarity. Its themes are pretty much summed up by one of the characters in the evening's second act: "A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it? You belong. And then you don't. It passes you by, unless you start a family of your own."

Click here to read full review


‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 3 – The Story of a Family’
Melissa Rose Bernardo, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

A cloud of sadness looms over The Story of a Family, the third and final installment in The Orphans' Home Cycle — and it's palpable even before the play's funereal beginning. It signals that Horton Foote's sublime trilogy is coming to a close; these are

After nine hours of The Orphans' Home Cycle, it seems ungrateful to want more: There are, after all, nine plays and three productions on display at Off Broadway's Signature Theatre; director Michael Wilson and his 22-member cast have done remarkable work, imbuing Foote's epic piece with a delicate intimacy.

Grade: A.

Click here to read full review


‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 3’
Horace Robedaux’s journey ends
David Cote, TIME OUT NEW YORK

Five Stars! (out of five)

Before his death last year, Horton Foote finished condensing nine full-length, sequential dramas (written in the ’70s) into the nine-hour epic that we now know as the Orphans’ Home Cycle. But as the plays were boiled down to their essences, a rich and strange mutation occurred: Time became radically shortened. Events that should take about an hour of real stage time (a trip into town, a funeral, getting sick from influenza) now unfold in five or ten minutes, which ramps up drama and forces you to suspend disbelief.

So fine-tuned is the ensemble’s acting, and so precise is Michael Wilson’s direction, this temporal strangeness only heightens the complex pleasures of Foote’s melancholy masterpiece.

Click here to read the full review

‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 3 – The Story of a Marriage’
Erik Haagensen, BACKSTAGE

"Don't be too sure. Don't be too sure about anything, Big Horace. Not anything in this world." Horton Foote's extraordinary nine-play saga, "The Orphans' Home Cycle," ends with this plainspoken warning from one brother-in-law to another as a family sits down to dinner. Simple, perhaps even obvious words, and yet in Foote's hands they are quietly shattering, taking on mythic dimension. Now that the end of the cycle has been reached, I'm happy to say that what I hoped for after seeing Part One is true: Foote's final gift to the stage is glorious, an essential American masterwork."

Click here to read the full review

Catching Up on Part 2 of The Orphans' Home Cycle

Missed The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage, or want to catch up on what happened before you see Part 3: The Story of a Family? Check out the video montage below, created by our friends (and co-producers) at Hartford Stage or or click here for a text summary.

See you at the theatre!

Text Summary of The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage

Missed The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage, or want to catch up on what happened before you see Part 3: The Story of a Family? Here's a summary of what happened:

In 1912, Horace is living in Harrison in a boarding house with three other young men who are prone to gambling and drinking. On the night before he leaves for business school in Houston, Horace calls on the widow Claire Ratliff. Throughout the evening, Horace becomes further entangled in the lives of Claire and her young children as she fends off a violent suitor and decides between two marriage proposals. Claire decides to marry Ned, an older traveling salesman whom her children adore, and Horace departs for Houston. In 1916, Horace is courting Elizabeth Vaughn, but Elizabeth’s parents believe Horace to be wild and refuse to allow the relationship. The two elope on Valentine’s Day, 1917.

By Christmas Eve, Horace and Elizabeth are expecting their first child and living in Mrs. Pate’s boarding house. The couple is visited by a motley assortment of friends and neighbors, including the mentally deteriorating George Tyler, an old friend of Horace’s father. The Vaughns, who have not spoken to their daughter since her marriage, end their estrangement by visiting the couple on Christmas Day. With them is their son, Brother Vaughn, whose drinking, gambling, and poor college grades cause the family to worry. Although Mr. Vaughn initially dismisses Horace and Elizabeth’s home as a rented room, he finds himself repeatedly drawn back to it and its “peace and contentment." George Tyler takes his own life, and the Vaughns offer to buy Horace and Elizabeth a house.

Signature Marks Progress on the Signature Center at Ceremony with Mayor Bloomberg

For more information on the Signature Center, please visit www.signaturecenter.org

MAYOR BLOOMBERG, SPEAKER QUINN, SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY AND RELATED COMPANIES ANNOUNCE $60 MILLION PARTNERSHIP TO CREATE GEHRY-DESIGNED PERFORMING ARTS CENTER IN THEATER DISTRICT

City Announces $25 Million Contribution to New Home for Signature Theatre within $800 Million, 1.2 Million-Square-Foot LEED-Silver Complex with More than 800 Housing Units and Hotel

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Signature Theatre Company Founding Artistic Director James Houghton and Related Companies Executive Vice President Bruce A .Beal Jr. today announced a $60 million partnership to create a new home for the theater company. The Frank Gehry-designed Signature Center will be part of Related Companies’ $800 million, 59-story, residential building and hotel on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue in the heart of the theater district. The building will provide more than 800 new housing units, including more than 160 that will be targeted to low-income families. The performing arts center will feature three intimate and distinct theatres, rehearsal studios, a café, bookstore and administrative offices, and will allow Signature to more than double its audience, with anticipated attendance of more than 80,000. The LEED-Silver building will create 700 construction jobs and is expected to be completed in 2011, with the Signature Center expected to be completed in 2012. Joining Mayor Bloomberg at the announcement, which took place on the construction site of the new complex, were New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin, and Signature Theatre Company Playwright-in-Residence in 2010-11 Tony Kushner, Executive Director Erika Mallin and artists-in-residence Bill Irwin, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Hallie Foote, John Guare and Edward Albee.

“Signature Theatre Company is one of New York City’s most successful and fastest growing cultural groups, and its spectacular new home will allow it to continue to expand,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The $25 million commitment, combined with a $35 million private investment, will result in a new, world-class performance venue in the heart of the City’s theater district. The fact that Related Companies is moving forward with the major development project now is great news and will have a profound impact, not only on the cultural industry and the City’s skyline, but also on the local economy. There was a period when the future of the project was in question – as were its 700 construction jobs and hundreds of units of much-needed housing. But the construction unions, contractors, architects and engineers worked together to reduce costs, and today it’s serving as a prime example that – despite the national economic downturn – large-scale projects are still happening.”

“The Council has a long standing commitment to the visual and performing arts of this City,” said Speaker Quinn. “We recognize that in order for the city’s theatres to thrive we need to invest in them. I am very happy the city was able to participate in this public private partnership. With the incredible new space that the Signature Theatre Company is acquiring, I look forward to not only the many exciting projects that are sure to come, but the jobs it is creating for our city particularly during this difficult time.”

“It is thrilling to watch our future home materialize in front of us, and we are honored to have Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, our Board of Trustees and so many of Signature’s artists here to celebrate the progress we have made,” said Signature Theatre Company Founding Artistic Director James Houghton. “Since its founding, Signature Theatre Company has been making an extended commitment to a playwrights’ body of work, championing the playwright’s singular vision, and involving the playwright in every aspect of the creative process. The Signature Center will be a home for many diverse writers to create work that engages even more artists and audiences. The collision and interaction of multiple distinct voices reveals the greater power of our collective stories. We are honored to have the extraordinary support of the City of New York and the Related Companies as we bring Signature’s artistic vision to life on an even larger scale.”

“The American playwriting community has never been more thriving with talent and interest, and no theater serves our community better than Signature does,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who will be Signature’s Playwright-in-Residence in 2010-11. “It’s one of the very few essential institutions in the American theater.”

“Related has a long-standing commitment to supporting the arts from our partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center to Symphony Space and we are incredibly proud of the public-private partnership we have formed with the Signature Theatre Company, a great New York arts institution, to create a world-class theatre complex on 42nd Street in the heart of the theatre district,” said Related Companies Executive Vice President Bruce A. Beal Jr. “We are also grateful to our entire development team, contractors, architects, consultants and members of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York who are working hard to ensure that this large scale development project can continue to move forward in challenging economic times and as many other development projects remain stalled.”

“We are happy to be part of creating a new home in the New York City theatre district for the Signature Theatre Company,” said Architect Frank Gehry. “I believe in Jim Houghton’s mission of creating innovative theater and our goal was to design the spaces to support that mission. We’re all very excited about the direction we’ve taken and are looking forward to watching the first performance.”

“This new home for Signature will build on the company’s success, expands its commitment to public accessibility, and serves both the local neighborhood and the city’s entire cultural community,” said Commissioner Levin. “By bringing together artists and audiences in a wonderful new space, Signature will enhance its contribution to the city’s identity, economy and quality of life.”

“I don’t expect in my lifetime to run into too many opportunities where I have the ability to participate in something that will be a lasting legacy for my community,” said Signature Theatre Trustee and Co-Chair of Capital Campaign Edward Norton. “I strongly believe that the Signature Center is one such opportunity where we can make a significant contribution to the future landscape of the arts in New York City.”

The City is contributing $25 million to the Signature Center. The theater company has raised $16 million for the project and plans to raise an additional $19 million. The Signature Center will feature three unique programs: the continuation of the Master Playwright Residency, which explores the works of playwrights with major bodies of work; the expansion of the Legacy Program, which celebrates the lifetime achievements of the artists who have previously worked at Signature, and the introduction of a new Emerging Playwrights Residency, which will feature early and mid-career playwrights, and guarantee them three full productions over the course of a four-year residency.

The entire 59-story complex will be built to LEED Silver standards. The building will incorporate smart design measures and premium efficiency systems that will save over $800,000 worth of energy each year, resulting in less of a draw on the City’s energy infrastructure and lower energy bills for each of its tenants and over 1,800 anticipated residents. The project also anticipates another $100,000 worth of electricity savings by using fluorescent lamps instead of incandescent bulbs for the building’s temporary lighting during construction. While Frank
Gehry is designing the theater center, Arquitectonica and Ismael Leyva are designing the rest of the building.

Founded in 1991 by James Houghton, Signature is the first theatre company to devote an entire season to the work of a single playwright, providing audiences with re-examinations of past writings, as well as New York and world premieres. Since 2005, Signature has been committed to presenting its world-class programming at an affordable price: the Signature Ticket Initiative, with major support form Time Warner, offers subsidized $20 tickets to all performances. Signature’s initiative has become a model in breaking down price barriers to theatre, helping to attract younger and more diverse audiences.

Signature is currently running the critically acclaimed, sold-out The Orphans’ Home Cycle by Horton Foote, a nine hour, three-part theatrical event and the company’s most ambitious programming to date (22 actors, multiple set locations). Signature will celebrate its 20th anniversary in the 2010-11 season by presenting a season of works by Pulitzer-Prize winner Tony Kushner, including the first New York revival of Angels in America. Signature, its productions and its resident writers have been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize, eleven Lucille Lortel Awards, fifteen Obie Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, and nineteen AUDELCO Awards, among many other distinctions. The National Theatre Conference recognized the company as the 2003 Outstanding National Theatre of the Year.