The world premiere is part of South Coast Repertory's 11th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival. Performances continue to May 11 on SCR's Julianne Argyros Stage.
Trip Cullman directs the new comedy about one man's reaction to Christo's Central Park-set art installation "The Gates."
The cast includes Reg Rogers, T. Scott Cunningham, Cynthia Harris, Marin Ireland, Caroline Lagerfelt and Lorenzo Pisoni.
According to SCR, The Injured Party "is set in a specific New York City moment — 2005, when the art installation of Christo's 'The Gates' captured the imagination of city dwellers with its 23 miles of billowing fabric in Central Park. One of the viewers was Maxene [played by Harris], 94 years old and enormously rich. Her grandson Seth [played by Rogers], who studiously avoided 'The Gates,' is not so rich, hopelessly stalled — and determined that 'redistribution must commence.' A bevy of inimitable New Yorkers aid and/or hinder Seth in this ingenious new comedy about family, love, art, money and ambition."
photo by Henry DiRocco |
Tony Award nominee Reg Rogers previously appeared in the New York productions of Greenberg's Hurrah at Last and The Dazzle (OBIE and Lucille Lortel Awards). On Broadway, Rogers appeared in Proposals, Holiday (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations) and The Moliere Comedies. Recent stage credits include Richard III at California Shakespeare Theater and Uncle Vanya at Lake Lucille.
Greenberg received the Tony Award for his play, Take Me Out. South Coast Repertory commissioned and presented the world premieres of Greenberg's A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, Hurrah at Last, Night and Her Stars, The Extra Man and Three Days of Rain, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was recently revived on Broadway.
SCR has also produced his play The Dazzle. Greenberg's other plays include Eastern Standard, Jenny Keeps Talking, The American Plan and The Maderati. A staged reading of the SCR-commissioned Our Mother's Brief Affair was presented at the 2007 Pacific Playwrights Festival.
Cullman's credits include Some Men (Second Stage), Dark Matters (Rattlestick Theater), Dog Sees God (Century Center), The Wooden Breeks (MCC), Manic Flight Reaction (Playwrights Horizons), Swimming in the Shallows (Second Stage Uptown), Roulette (John Houseman Theater), The Last Sunday in June (Century Center & Rattlestick Theater), among others.
For more information, visit www.scr.org, or call (714) 708-5555.
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The Injured Party is one of two world premieres to be presented on SCR's main stages during the Pacific Playwrights Festival (May 2-4). Also planned is the world premiere of Kate Robin's What They Have, on the Segerstrom Stage, April 4-May 4.
In addition to the two fully produced plays, the weekend festival showcases five new plays commissioned by South Coast Repertory in readings and workshops.