“There’s a starman waiting in the sky“
It is with much pleasure and great excitement that we can confirm the Winter 2015 New York production of LAZARUS by David Bowie and Enda Walsh.
LAZARUS is inspired by the 1963 novel, The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis, and centres on the character of Thomas Jerome Newton, famously portrayed by Bowie in the 1976 screen adaptation directed by Nicolas Roeg.
LAZARUS features songs specially composed by Bowie for this production as well as new arrangements of previously recorded songs.
Read the full press release below.
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NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP ANNOUNCES THE WORLD PREMIERE OF LAZARUS
BY DAVID BOWIE AND ENDA WALSH
DIRECTED BY IVO VAN HOVE
INSPIRED BY THE NOVEL THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH BY WALTER TEVIS
JOINING THE WORLD PREMIERE OF FONDLY, COLLETTE RICHLAND
BY SIBYL KEMPSON
DIRECTED BY JOHN COLLINS
From NYTW Company-in-Residence
ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE
(April 2, 2015 – New York, New York) New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) (Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director Jeremy Blocker) is proud to announce that the 2015/16 season will include the world premiere of LAZARUS, by David Bowie and Enda Walsh (ONCE, Tony Award) inspired by the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Ivo van Hove (Hedda Gabler, More Stately Mansions, Obie Awards). LAZARUS will begin performances in Winter 2015, following the previously announced world premiere of FONDLY, COLLETTE RICHLAND, a new play from NYTW’s acclaimed Company-in-Residence Elevator Repair Service (The Sound and the Fury, The Select, Gatz).
Following his revelatory production of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage, the internationally acclaimed director Ivo van Hove returns to New York Theatre Workshop with a new production, LAZARUS by David Bowie and Enda Walsh. Mr. Walsh makes his return to NYTW after the successful run of Once. LAZARUS features songs specially composed by Mr. Bowie for this production as well as new arrangements of previously recorded songs. LAZARUS is inspired by the 1963 novel, The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, and centers on the character of Thomas Newton, famously portrayed by Mr. Bowie in the 1976 screen adaptation directed by Nicolas Roeg.
NYTW’s Obie and Lortel award-winning company-in-residence Elevator Repair Service crosses theatrical boundaries once again with the remarkable world premiere play FONDLY, COLLETTE RICHLAND by Sibyl Kempson. Best known for their bold interpretations of classic American literature (The Sound and the Fury, The Select, Gatz), this visionary company breaks new ground in its first collaboration with a living playwright – an NYTW Usual Suspect with a singularly inventive new voice. Kempson creates an imaginative world brought to life by ERS’s unforgettable ensemble of actors under the direction of ERS Artistic Director John Collins, and with original haunting compositions played live by Mike Iveson. Mr. and Mrs. “Fritz” Fitzhubert are at home in a wintry town in everyday America when they are summoned through a wee little secret door in their living room. On the other side, they find themselves in an Alpen hotel populated by mysterious employees, guests and relatives who coax them into souvenir shopping, perilous hikes and, ultimately, the assumption of ancient identities. When eventually they return home from this phantasmagorical world, they find their lives forever altered.
The remainder of the 2015/16 season will be announced soon. A variety of membership packages are now available for the 2015/16 season at NYTW.org or by calling Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 (12-8pm daily). Select packages include tickets to FOREVER, the fourth and final production of the 2014/15 season (April 22 – May 32, 2015), created and performed by Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith and directed by Neel Keller. FOREVER begins previews on Wednesday, April 22nd and officially opens on Monday, May 4, 2015 at New York Theatre Workshop (79 E. 4th Street New York, NY 10003). FOREVER runs through Sunday, May 31, 2015.
New York Theatre Workshop, now in its 31st season of incubating important new works of theatre, continues to honor its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape all our lives. Each season, from its home in New York’s East Village, NYTW presents four new productions, over 80 readings and numerous workshop productions for over 45,000 audience members. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs, including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies and artist fellowships. Over the last three decades, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson’s Rent, Tony Kushner’s Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright’s Quills, Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick’s The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, Martha Clarke’s Vienna: Lusthaus, Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s Aftermath, Rick Elice’s Peter and the Starcatcher, and Enda Walsh’s Once. Last season, the Workshop received critical acclaim for Caryl Churchill’s newest play, Love and Information, as well as What’s It All About? Bacharach Reimagined, which garnered Drama Desk, Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations. NYTW’s productions have received a Pulitzer Prize, seventeen Tony Awards and assorted Obie, Drama Desk, and Lucille Lortel Awards.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT NYTW:
http://www.nytw.org/
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BIOS
IVO VAN HOVE NYTW: Scenes from a Marriage, The Little Foxes, The Misanthrope, Hedda Gabler (OBIE Award), Alice in Bed, A Streetcar Named Desire, More Stately Mansions (OBIE Award). International: A View from the Bridge (The Young Vic, West End, Critics Circle Award, Evening Standard & Olivier nominations); Antigone (Barbican and US/EU Tour); Roman Tragedies, Opening Night, The Fountainhead, Angels in America, Teorema, The Taming of the Shrew, Scenes from a Marriage, The Norman Conquests, Mourning Becomes Electra, Three Sisters, Othello, Children of the Sun, Long Day’s Journey into Night (Toneelgroep Amsterdam); Desire Under the Elms (Stuttgart); The Miser, Lady with the Camelias (Schauspielhaus Hamburg); The Misanthrope, Edward 2 (Schaubuehne Berlin); Rent (Joop van den Ende Theater Productions); Faces (Theater der Welt). Opera: Der Ring Des Nibelungen, Lulu (Flemish Opera); Iolanta, The Macropulos Case (Dutch Opera); Idomeneo, La Clemenza Di Tito (La Monnaie Brussels); Macbeth (Lyon); Brokeback Mountain (Madrid). Film: Amsterdam. Awards: Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Honorary doctor University of Antwerp.
DAVID BOWIE has released over thirty albums throughout his fifty years in the music industry, including The Man Who Sold The World, Space Oddity, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Station to Station, Young Americans; Low and Heroes with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti; Outside, with Eno, Heathen, and, most recently, The Next Day, which was critically lauded across the world, and in 2014 the compilation Nothing Has Changed. As an actor, Bowie appeared on Broadway in The Elephant Man, and can be seen in the films The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan, as well as Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ, Tony Scott’s The Hunger and Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. In 2006, Bowie starred as himself in an acclaimed episode of “Extras,” Ricky Gervais’ series on HBO. In 1996, Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1999, he became a Commandeur dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
ENDA WALSH As writer for theatre: The Twits (Royal Court Theatre), Room 303 (Galway International Arts Festival), Ballyturk (Landmark/Galway International Arts Festival) Irish Tour, Royal National Theatre; Misterman (Landmark/Galway International Arts Festival) Galway, Royal National Theatre, St. Ann’s New York; Once (New York Theatre Workshop/West End/Broadway/Worldwide); My Friend Duplicity, Bedbound (Traverse) Ireland, Royal Court Theatre; Penelope (Druid) Irish Tour, Edinburgh, London, New York St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Walworth Farce (Druid) Ireland, Edinburgh, Royal National Theatre, New York St. Ann’s Warehouse, Australian and American Tour; Chatroom (Royal National Theatre) British and Asian Tours; The New Electric Ballroom (Kammerspiele, Munich) Ireland, London, New York St. Ann’s Warehouse, LA, Australia; The Small Things (Paines Plough/Menier Chocolate Factory); Disco Pigs (Corcadorca/Triskel Arts) World Tour. As writer, film includes: Hunger and Disco Pigs. As writer, radio includes: Four Big Days in the Life of Dessie Banks, The Monotonous Life of Little Miss P. Awards include: Tony Award, Outer Critic Circle Award, Lortel (Once), Fringe First (Disco Pigs, Bedbound, The Walworth Farce, The New Electric Ballroom, Penelope), Obie Award for Playwriting 2010, Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Production (Ballyturk), an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Galway University.
ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE is a New York City-based company that creates original works for live theater with an ongoing ensemble. Since its founding in 1991 by John Collins and a group of actors, ERS has built a body of work that has earned it a loyal following and made it one of New York’s most highly-acclaimed experimental theater companies. Their work has been seen across America, Europe, Australia and Asia, and they have been the recipient of many awards including a 2012 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence; The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Theater Grant; the Theatre Communications Group’s Peter Zeisler Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement; and (for GATZ) Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Visiting Production and Lucille Lortel Awards for Alternative Theatrical Experience and Best Director. ERS ensemble members have received OBIEs for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Lighting Design, and Sound Design. Next up for ERS is a remount of the 2008 staging of William Faulkner’s modernist masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury, at The Public Theater in May 2015.
JOHN COLLINS founded Elevator Repair Service in 1991. Since then, he has directed or co-directed all of the company’s productions. John is the recipient of a 2014 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art and a 2011 United States Artists Donnelley Fellowship. In 2010 John received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Director and the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for ERS’ production of GATZ. Recent ERS projects include ARGUENDO at The Public Theater and THE SELECT (THE SUN ALSO RISES) at New York Theatre Workshop. Upcoming projects include FONDLY, COLLETTE RICHLAND, premiering this fall at New York Theatre Workshop. His writing about theater and sound design can be found in two recently published books, Theatre Noise: The Sound of Performance (Cambridge Scholars, 2011) and Encountering Ensemble (Methuen Drama, 2013). John was born in North Carolina and raised in Georgia. He holds a combined degree in English Literature and Theater Studies from Yale.
SIBYL KEMPSON’s plays have been presented in NYC, Austin, Omaha, Minneapolis, Bonn, Germany, Baltimore, and Rockville. She is a 2015 Artist-in-Residence at Abrons Arts Center, where her fledgling 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co. will premiere its inaugural production Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag in April 2015. USA Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, McKnight National Residency and Commission, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Commission, New Dramatists/Full Stage USA commission, and a National Presenters Network Creation Fund Award; individual funding from Jerome and Greenwall Foundations; MacDowell Colony Fellow, member of New Dramatists (’17), NYTW Usual Suspect. MFA Brooklyn College. Sibyl teaches playwriting at Sarah Lawrence College. Her plays are published by 53rd State Press, PAJ, and PLAY: A Journal of Plays.
