The play is one of four new works bowing this week in the festival on different stages in Theatre Row on West 42nd Street. Other plays beginning there July 19 are Christina Gorman's Split Wide Open, Gordon Dahlquist's Messalina and John Yearley's Ephemera. Visit www.spfnyc.com.
In The Map Maker's Sorrow, which has been produced in England, "Henry is a struggling sleep therapist, Morag is a successful maker of maps," according to production notes. "When their only child kills himself they are forced to look at a world full of failed expectations in a new light. A politician with a fondness for prostitutes, and a prostitute with a need for something more, round out this story of control, regret and love."
The production, through July 24 at the Harold Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, features David Patrick Kelly ("The Warriors," "Dreamscape," Feste in Lincoln Center Theater's Twelfth Night), Kate Skinner (The Graduate), Daniel Oreskes (The Public's Henry V, Troilus and Cressida, Richard III), Noah Bean (TV's "Ed," Williamstown's The Winter's Tale) and Nina Jacques (FringeNYC's Cycling Past the Matterhorn).
British writer Chris Lee has written several plays, including Hummingbird (Old Red Lion in 1996), The Optimist's Daughter (the Finborough in 1997), Eat the Enemy (Old Red Lion in 1999 and in the U.S. at TheaterLab in Houston), The Electrocution of Children (the Peacock in Dublin in 1998 – winner, Stewart Parker New Playwright Award). The Map Maker's Sorrow was mounted in 1999 at the Peacock. In 1999, Lee was writer in residence at the Abbey Theatre. In 2000 he was awarded a Pearson New Playwright's Bursary for an attachment to the Finborough. His fifth play, On Line and Paranoid in the Sentimental City, opened there in 2000. His new play, Vermilion Dream, opened at the Salisbury Playhouse in October 2004.
The performance schedule for The Map Maker's Sorrow is July 19 at 7:30 PM, July 20 at 7 PM, July 21 at 2 PM and 8:30 PM, July 22 at 7:30 PM, July 23 at 3 PM, July 23 at 8:30 PM and July 24 at 1:30 PM. All tickets are $10. Theatre Row is at 410 W. 42nd Street. For more information, visit www.ticketcentral.com or www.spfnyc.com.
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Founded and executive-produced by Arielle Tepper, the second Summer Play Festival (SPF), playing July 5-31, has a mission "to give emerging writers, directors, and producers an opportunity at no cost to themselves to work on their material in a protected environment, guided by established professionals. Sixteen plays are given full productions in the month of July under one roof at the Theatre Row Complex on 42nd Street, west of Ninth Avenue. Our goal is to promote and support the writer during and after the festival."
