August 7, 2006

Philadelphia Theatre Company opens its 2006-2007 season with the East Coast Premiere of the dark comedy Murderers by Jeffrey Hatcher on October 6-November 5 at 1714 Delancey Street. Directed by Michael Bush, the ensemble cast features Marylouise Burke, Brent Langdon, and Kristine Nielsen.

Previews begin Friday, October 6 with opening night on Wednesday, October 11. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday until November 5. Tickets are $33 to $51, with discounts for students, seniors and groups. Tickets are available by calling the Philadelphia Theatre Company Box Office at 215-985-0420 or visiting www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org.

"As we enter our final season at Plays & Players Theater before the move to our new home in the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, we are thrilled to be continuing our relationship with Jeffrey Hatcher, one of our favorite playwrights and master storytellers," said Sara Garonzik, Philadelphia Theatre Company's Producing Artistic Director.

In Murderers, Gerald, Lucy, and Minka are cold-blooded Murderers, happily living and working at the Riddle Key Retirement Community in Florida. That they committed murder is not in question, but the "why" inspires an evening of greed, revenge and hilarity.

Jeffrey Hatcher returns to Philadelphia Theatre Company which presented the world premiere of Hatcher's A Picasso (awarded the 2003 Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play) and the Philadelphia premieres of Compleat Female Stage Beauty and Three Viewings. Off-Broadway, his plays have been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, The Minetta Lane, and The Acting Company as well as at Yale Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, South Coast Repertory, Intiman Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Cleveland Play House and Studio Arena. He has written the scripts for the films Stage Beauty and Casanova as well as several episodes of Columbo. Honored with the 2000 American Theatre Critics Association Award, he has also received the 1998 New Dramatists Whitfield-Cooke Prize, the Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and fellowship awards from the Jerome and McKnight Foundations.

Michael Bush is the former Director of Artistic Production for the Manhattan Theatre Club. During his more than 25 year tenure he helped artistically guide more than 150 new plays and musicals, including Tony Award-winners Love! Valour! Compassion! and Proof, which also won the Pulitzer Prize. Other shows of note include The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Sight Unseen; The Wild Party; Putting It Together; Lips Together Teeth Apart; Sylvia; and A Class Act. He has recently been represented on Broadway as part of the artistic team of Brooklyn Boy, Doubt, and After the Night and the Music. During a two-year hiatus from Manhattan Theatre Club, he served as Producing Artistic Director of Charlotte Repertory Theatre where he presented Hilary Swank in The Miracle Worker, Penny Fuller in The Glass Menagerie, and directed and co-wrote the book for the musical Let Me Sing starring Andre DeShields.

Marylouise Burke has appeared on Broadway in Into The Woods, Inherit the Wind, and the national tour of Lettice and Lovage. Off-Broadway she has starred in several productions at Manhattan Theatre Club including Fuddy Meers, for which she won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, and Kimberly Akimbo, for which she was nominated for both a Drama Desk and Outer Critics' Circle Award for Outstanding Leading Actress. Regionally she has been featured at South Coast Repertory, Hartford Stage, McCarter Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, and La Jolla Playhouse. Her film credits include Sideways, Must Love Dogs, Mona Lisa Smile, Meet Joe Black, Angie, Jeffrey, Celebrity, Piggie, The Baxter, Urbania, Series 7, and most recently Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. TV appearances include Hope and Faith, Law & Order: SVU, One Life to Live, and the TV movies Amy and Isabelle (Oprah Presents), and My Sexiest Mistake (Oxygen).

Brent Langdon has been a frequent guest at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where he was featured in Crimes of the Heart, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Dracula, and A Christmas Carol. He has also appeared in several productions at Playmakers Repertory, Grindstone Theatre Company, New Harmony Project, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati and Orlando Shakespeare Festival.

Kristine Nielsen recently starred in the title role of the world premiere of Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon at McCarter Theatre and in Betty's Summer Vacation, for which she won an Obie Award and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Featured Actress. On Broadway she has appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire, The Iceman Cometh, The Greenbird, and Jackie: An American Life. Regionally she has performed in several productions at Center Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theatre, and Yale Repertory Theatre.

Murderers brings together Philadelphia Theatre Company alumni set designer James Noone (Three Viewings [Also by Jeffrey Hatcher] and Love!Valour!Compassion!) and lighting designer Traci Klainer (Barbra's Wedding and Topdog/Underdog), and introduces costume designer Karen Ledger and sound designer Ryan Rummery. Philadelphia Theatre Company's dramaturg for Murderers is Warren Hoffman.

Philadelphia Theatre Company's subscription season also includes the new musical Nerds://A Musical Software Satire, with book and lyrics by Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner, and music by Hal Goldberg, on January 26-Feburary 25 during the Philadelphia New Play Festival; the Philadelphia premiere of the Primary Stages Production of In The Continuum, written and performed by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter and directed by Robert O'Hara on March 16-April 15; and the Philadelphia premiere of Orson's Shadow by Austin Pendleton, running May 4-June 3. The season also includes a special family holiday production of The Frog Bride, written and performed by David Gonzalez and directed by Lenard Petit on December 22-December 30.

Philadelphia Theatre Company is Philadelphia's only non-profit professional theater dedicated exclusively to producing world and regional premieres of works by contemporary American playwrights. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director, Sara Garonzik, Philadelphia Theatre Company has had ever-increasing national impact having produced 34 world premieres of new American plays and musicals in its 31 seasons. Recent world premiere productions include: Some Men by Terrence McNally (to be produced at Second Stage Theatre in Spring 2007); Adrift in Macao by Christopher Durang and Peter Melnick (to be produced at Primary Stages, Winter 2007); Bruce Graham's According to Goldman; Jeffrey Hatcher's A Picasso; Daniel Stern's comedy Barbra's Wedding (moved to the Westside Arts Theatre in 2003); John Henry Redwood's No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs; J.T. Rogers' White People; David Ives' Lives of the Saints; three-time Tony Award-winning Master Class by Terrence McNally, starring Zoe Caldwell; Bunny Bunny by Alan Zweibel (Lucille Lortel Award, 1997); and the American premiere of Birdy by Naomi Wallace. A Picasso received its New York premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club in April 2005. Philadelphia Theatre Company was chosen Best Theatre Company 2003 by Philadelphia magazine, Theater Company of the Year by Philadelphia Weekly in 2005, Best Theater Company in the 2005 City Paper Readers' Choice Awards, and named Best Theater by Philadelphia Style Magazine in 2006. Since 1995, Philadelphia Theatre Company has received 99 nominations and 30 awards from Philadelphia's Barrymore Awards, most recently for Take Me Out (Outstanding Overall Production of a Play, and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play [Kraig Swartz as Mason]), Elegies: A Song Cycle (Outstanding Music Direction [Kimberly Grigsby], and Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical), The Story (Outstanding Direction of a Play [Maria Mileaf]), and Trumbo (Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play [Bill Irwin]).

Philadelphia Theatre Company has embarked on a groundbreaking Capital Campaign in support of building its new home, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre on the Avenue of the Arts, scheduled to open in Fall, 2007 when it concludes its 25-year residence at the historic Plays & Players Theater.

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