Shows & Tickets
BLYTHE DANNER TO STAR IN THE COUNTRY HOUSE AT THE GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE WORLD PREMIERE BY DONALD MARGULIES DIRECTED BY DANIEL SULLIVAN A CO-PRODUCTION WITH MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB OPENING NIGHT IS JUNE 11 IN THE GIL CATES THEATER AT THE GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE
LOS ANGELES (March 12, 2014) – Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies (Coney Island Christmas, Times Stands Still, Sight Unseen) returns to the Geffen Playhouse with his sixth Geffen production, a new comedy about a deeply dramatic family. The Country House begins previews June 3 (opening night is June 11). Tony and Emmy winner Blythe Danner (The Commons of Pensacola, Meet the Parents) stars as Anna Patterson, the matriarch of a brood of famous and longing-to-be-famous creative artists who have gathered at their Berkshires summerhouse during the Williamstown Theatre Festival. But when the weekend takes an unexpected turn, everyone is forced to improvise… inciting a series of simmering jealousies, a flurry of romantic outbursts and a bout of passionate soul-searching. Inspired by Chekhov's pastoral comedies, this witty and compelling new play provides a piercing look at a family of performers coming to terms with the roles they play in each other’s lives. Tony winner Daniel Sullivan (Time Stands Still, Good People) directs.The Country House is a co-production with Manhattan Theatre Club which will present the Broadway run of the production this fall (Previews begin September 9 for an October 2 opening night at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre) following the Geffen run. Danner will star in both the Geffen and Manhattan Theatre Club runs of the play. The Country House was commissioned by MTC through the U.S. Trust New American Play Commissioning Program.THE COUNTRY HOUSEWorld Premiere by Donald MarguliesDirected by Daniel SullivanA co-production with Manhattan Theatre ClubPreviews: Tuesday, June 3 – Tuesday, June 10Opening Night: Wednesday, June 11Closing Night: Sunday, July 13 PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE Monday No performance Tuesday – Saturday 8:00pm Saturday 3:00pm; 8:00pm Sunday 2:00pm TICKET INFORMATION Tickets are $37-$77 and are available in-person at the Geffen Playhouse box office, via phone at 310.208.5454 or online at www.geffenplayhouse.org. LOCATION The Gil Cates Theater at the Geffen Playhouse 10866 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024 MULTIMEDIA High resolution photos are available at the Geffen online media center: http://geffenplayhouse.org/mediacenter.php BIOGRAPHIESDONALD MARGULIES (Playwright) Margulies’ plays include Time Stands Still, Brooklyn Boy, Dinner With Friends, Sight Unseen, Collected Stories, Coney Island Christmas, The Loman Family Picnic, God of Vengeance, What’s Wrong With This Picture?, Found A Peanut, The Model Apartment, and Shipwrecked! An Entertainment – The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told By Himself). He has won a Lucille Lortel Award, two American Theatre Critics New Play Citations, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Awards, two Obie Awards, one Tony Award nomination, two Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Awards, five Drama Desk Award nominations, two Pulitzer Prize nominations and one Pulitzer Prize. His works have been performed at major theatres across the United States and around the world. Margulies has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2005 he was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with an Award in Literature, and was the recipient of the 2000 Sidney Kingsley Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theatre. Margulies is an alumnus of New Dramatists and serves on the council of The Dramatists Guild of America. He is an adjunct professor of English and Theatre Studies at Yale University.DANIEL SULLIVAN (Director) most recently directed The Snow Geese, Orphans, and Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway. For The Public Theater, Sullivan directed A Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Stuff Happens, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Among his Broadway credits are The Columnist, Good People, Time Stands Still, Accent on Youth, The Homecoming, Prelude to a Kiss, Rabbit Hole, After the Night and the Music, Julius Caesar, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen, I’m Not Rappaport, Morning’s at Seven, Proof, 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 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, Urbana-Champaign BLYTHE DANNER (Anna Patterson) won two Emmy awards for her role on Showtime’s Huff and was nominated twice for roles on Will & Grace and in Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grownups, and her list of career accomplishments continues with a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in Butterflies Are Free and nominations for roles in Harold Pinter's Betrayal, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Stephen Sondheim's musical Follies. She most recently appeared on Broadway in the musical Nice Work If You Can Get It and Off-Broadway in The Commons of Pensacola. Her film roles include Woody Allen's Alice, The Great Santini, the Meet the Parents trilogy, What’s Your Number? and Sylvia, a film in which she appeared with her daughter, actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Most recently Danner has appeared in The Lucky One and Hello I Must Be Going, and she will next be seen in the films I’ll See You In My Dreams and Tumbledown. Danner takes action to support causes that are important to her. She has passionately advocated for environmental concerns for more than 40 years as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and other groups, and serves on the national board of Planned Parenthood. Since the death of her husband Bruce Paltrow from oral cancer, she has also been helping the Oral Cancer Foundation raise disease awareness. ABOUT THE GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE The Geffen Playhouse has been a hub of the Los Angeles theater scene since opening its doors in 1995. Noted for its intimacy and celebrated for its world-renowned mix of classic and contemporary plays, provocative new works and second productions, the Geffen Playhouse continues to present a body of work that has garnered national recognition. Named in honor of entertainment mogul and philanthropist David Geffen, who made the initial donation to the theater, the company was founded by Gilbert Cates, and is currently helmed by Artistic Director Randall Arney, Managing Director Ken Novice, General Manager Behnaz Ataee, Chief Development Officer Regina Miller and Co-Chairs of the Board Martha Henderson and Pamela Robinson Hollander. Proudly associated with UCLA, the Geffen Playhouse welcomes an audience of more than 130,000 each year, and maintains an extensive education and outreach program, designed to engage young people and the community at large in the arts. For more information, please visit www.geffenplayhouse.org.
