Photo by Mike Piscitelli
Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, Artistic Producer; Barry Grove, Executive Producer) and MCC Theater (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director) will co-produce the world premiere of THE SNOW GEESE, a new play by Sharr White, directed by Tony Award winner Daniel Sullivan, starring Tony and Emmy Award winner Mary-Louise Parker.
The strictly limited 11-week engagement of THE SNOW GEESE will begin previews Tuesday, October 1 and open October 24, on Broadway at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street).
THE SNOW GEESE marks the second collaboration between MTC, MCC, and playwright Sharr White. This winter, MTC produced the acclaimed Broadway premiere of White’s play The Other Place, which had its world premiere at MCC Theater in 2011.
Parker returns to the Friedman stage where she previously starred in Craig Lucas’ Reckless for which she received a 2004 Tony Award nomination. THE SNOW GEESE also reunites Parker with Daniel Sullivan, who directed her in David Auburn’s Proof, for which both Parker and Sullivan received Tony Awards for their work.
With World War I raging abroad, newly widowed Elizabeth Gaesling (Mary-Louise Parker) gathers her family for their annual shooting party to mark the opening of hunting season in rural, upstate New York. But Elizabeth is forced to confront a new reality as her carefree eldest son comes to terms with his impending deployment overseas and her younger son discovers that the father they all revered left them deeply in debt. Together, the family must let go of the life they’ve always known.
Tony winner Daniel Sullivan (Rabbit Hole, Proof) directs this stirring new play about a family waking up from their own personal Gilded Age as the world around them changes forever.
Additional casting, creative team, and other listings information for THE SNOW GEESE will be announced in the coming weeks.
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, MTC has become one of the country’s most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Over the past three decades, MTC productions have earned a total of 18 Tony Awards and six Pulitzer Prizes, an accomplishment unparalleled by a New York theatrical institution. MTC has a Broadway home at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) and two Off-Broadway theatres at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street). Renowned MTC productions include Venus in Fur; Master Class; Good People; The Whipping Man; Time Stands Still; The Royal Family; Ruined; The American Plan; Come Back, Little Sheba; Blackbird; Translations; Shining City; Rabbit Hole; Doubt; Proof; The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife; Love! Valour! Compassion!; A Small Family Business; Sylvia; Putting It Together; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; Crimes of the Heart; and Ain’t Misbehavin.’
MCC Theater – founded in 1986 as Manhattan Class Company – is driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Led by Artistic Directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, Will Cantler, and Executive Director Blake West, MCC fulfills its mission by producing new work that challenges artists and rewards audiences, and by nurturing the development of playwrights and students through a variety of literary and education programs. MCC currently produces its annual season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street) and will open its own two-theater complex on West 52nd Street and 10th Avenue in 2016. Notable productions include The Other Place; Really Really; The Submission; The Pride; Fifty Words; Nixon’s Nixon; The Grey Zone; the Tony Award-winning Frozen; the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit; the re-imagined production of the musical Carrie; and six plays by Playwright-in-Residence Neil LaBute, including Fat Pig and Reasons to Be Pretty.
BIOGRAPHIES
SHARR WHITE (Playwright). White’s plays include The Other Place (Broadway with Manhattan Theatre Club, Off-Broadway with MCC Theater); Annapurna (The Magic Theatre); Sunlight (National New Play Network Rolling Premiere); Six Years (Humana Festival of New American Plays). Honors include the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation’s Theatre Visions Fund Award and the Playwrights First Award (The Other Place); The Skye Cooper New American Play Prize (Sunlight, through Marin Theatre Company); and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. The Snow Geese was originally completed during a residency at the Cape Cod Theatre Project.
DANIEL SULLIVAN (Director). For Manhattan Theatre Club, Sullivan directed The Columnist, Good People, Time Stands Still, Accent on Youth, Rabbit Hole, After the Night and the Music, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen, Proof (Tony Award for Best Director). At the Delacorte Theatre, he directed As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merchant Of Venice, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives Of Windsor. Among his Broadway credits are Orphans, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Homecoming, Prelude to a Kiss, Julius Caesar, I’m Not Rappaport, Morning’s at Seven, the 2000 production of A Moon for the Misbegotten, Ah, Wilderness!, The Sisters Rosensweig, Conversations with my Father, and The Heidi Chronicles. Among his Off-Broadway credits are Stuff Happens, The Night Watcher, Intimate Apparel, Far East, Spinning into Butter, Dinner with Friends, and The Substance of Fire. From 1981 to 1997, he served as artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre. Sullivan is the Swanlund Professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
MARY-LOUISE PARKER (Elizabeth Gaesling). Parker’s work in Showtime’s “Weeds” earned her the Golden Globe Award, as well as four Golden Globe nominations, the Satellite award, along with five nominations, three Emmy nominations, and six SAG nominations. Parker’s work in Mike Nichols’ “Angels in America” garnered her an Emmy award and the Golden Globe Award; and her work on “The West Wing” and in TV movie “The Robber Bride” were recognized with Emmy nominations, the latter winning her a Gemini Award. For the small screen she also starred in “Sugartime,” “Saint Maybe,” “A Place for Annie,” “Vinegar Hill,” and many others.
Audiences most recently saw Parker on the big screen in the hit action-comedy Red with Bruce Willis and John Malkovich. Her upcoming feature films include Red 2, R.I.P.D. the action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Bacon; Jamesy Boy and Behaving Badly.
Parker made her Broadway debut in Prelude To A Kiss, garnering a Tony Award nomination, a Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, and a Drama Desk nomination. She originated the role of ‘Li’l Bit’ in How I Learned To Drive, which earned her an Obie Award, Lucille Lortel Award, and an Outer Critics Circle nomination. Her performance in Proof earned her the 2001 Tony Award, as well as the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, Obie, New York Magazine Award, and the T. Schreiber Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre. She also starred in Reckless, for which she received her third Tony Award nomination. In 2008, Parker starred in Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and was most recently seen in the Broadway revival of Hedda Gabler and in additional regional theatre productions across the country.
Parker’s film work includes the dark Christian comedy Saved!, Romance & Cigarettes, written and directed by John Turturro and produced by the Coen Brothers. Parker is known widely for her starring roles in Longtime Companion, Grand Canyon, Fried Green Tomatoes, Naked In New York, The Client, Bullets Over Broadway, Boys On The Side, Reckless, The Five Senses, for which she was nominated for a Genie Award, Pipe Dream, Red Dragon, The Best Thief In The World, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Solitary Man and Howl.
Parker is currently a contributing writer for Esquire Magazine. She won the Robert Brustein Award for ‘Excellence in Theater’ and the Philadelphia Film Festival Award for ‘Career Achievement’ and was recently awarded Steppenwolf theaters’ ‘Excellence in the Arts.’ Her personal and professional belongings, along with career memorabilia, are archived at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.
