NYC Premiere of Equivocation Will Feature Pankow, Parry, Pittu and More | Playbill

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News NYC Premiere of Equivocation Will Feature Pankow, Parry, Pittu and More The New York City premiere of Bill Cain's Equivocation, set in the time of Shakespeare and directed by Tony Award winner Garry Hynes, will feature Remy Auberjonois, Michael Countryman, David Furr, John Pankow, Charlotte Parry and Tony Award nominee David Pittu.
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Michael Countryman, John Pankow and David Pittu Photo by Aubrey Reuben

The limited Off-Broadway engagement will begin previews Feb. 9 and open March 2 at MTC at New York City Center – Stage I, 131 W. 55th Street.

According to MTC, "Bill Cain's new play set in 1605 England begins when King James' right hand man (David Pittu) commissions William Shakespeare (John Pankow) to write a new play about the Gunpowder Plot, a recent failed attempt to blow up Parliament and the Monarchy. Equivocation is a bold new look at the greatest playwright ever in a drama whose contemporary parallels are unmistakable and whose laughter is abundant — a work of startling revelations and vibrant theatricality."

The production will feature scenic and costume design by Francis O'Connor, lighting design by David Weiner, sound design by David Van Tieghem and Brandon Wolcott and fight direction by David Brimmer.

Cain is the author of the widely-produced play Stand-Up Tragedy, which earned six L.A. Critics Awards (including Best Production and Distinguished Writing) in its premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. Stand Up later won four Helen Hayes Awards (including Outstanding Production) at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, before its 1990 Broadway engagement where it received the Joe A. Callaway Playwriting Award. More recently, The Laying on of Hands was developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference and NYU's HotInk Series. 9 Circles was developed at Ojai and South Coast Rep's Pacific Playwrights Festival. He will return to Ojai this summer with his new play How To Write a New Book For The Bible: A Play For An Older Actress. Cain was the co-creator/writer/producer of "Nothing Sacred," a dramatic television series which premiered in the fall of 1997 on ABC and was awarded a George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Achievement in Television.

Garry Hynes was the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Direction for The Beauty Queen of Leenane. She is artistic director of Druid Theatre, Galway, for which she has directed many productions, including Long Day's Journey Into Night, My Brilliant Divorce and DruidSynge, The Complete Plays of J.M. Synge (also in Dublin, Edinburgh and New York). She staged the acclaimed production of McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Atlantic Theater Company, Juno for Encores! at City Center and Brian Friel's Translations for Manhattan Theatre Club. Auberjonois appeared in Broadway's The Country Girl, Frost/Nixon and the 2009 run of Irving Berlin's White Christmas.

Countryman's Broadway credits include Night Must Fall, Holiday, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, A Few Good Men and Face Value.

Furr recently appeared in Broadway's Accent on Youth (MTC), plus Cymbeline, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Rivals and King Lear (with Christopher Plummer).

Pankow's New York Shakespeare Festival productions include The Tempest, Measure for Measure, Henry V and Two Gentlemen of Verona. He recently appeared in David Mamet's double bill, School and Keep Your Pantheon at the Atlantic Theater, as well as Christopher Durang's Why Torture is Wrong, and the People who Love Them at the Public Theater. He has appeared on Broadway in Cymbeline, Amadeus, Serious Money, Twelve Angry Men and The Iceman Cometh. He was a regular on the hit series "Mad About You."

Parry was a part of the inaugural year of Sam Mendes' International "Bridge Project," performing in The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, followed by a world tour and a sell-out run at The Old Vic in London. She has appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award winning The Real Thing (also West End, London) and Coram Boy. She created the role of Maureen in the world premiere of Edward Albee's latest play, Me, Myself and I at the McCarter Theatre.

Pittu was Tony Award nominated for playing Bertolt Brecht in Love Musik and multiple roles in Is He Dead? He was Feste in Twelfth Night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in summer 2009. Last season, he wrote and starred in What's That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling, which received two Outer Critics nominations for Best Off-Broadway Musical and Best Actor in a Musical, and was listed in both Entertainment Weekly and NY Times' Best of Theater 2008. (He will reprise a version of the show at Joe's Pub Jan. 17-18).

Tickets ($75) for Equivocation are available via New York City Center box office at 131 W. 55th Street, CityTix at (212) 581-1212 and www.nycitycenter.org. Tickets are on sale to March 28.

For more information, visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.

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Remy Auberjonois, Charlotte Parry and David Furr Photo by Aubrey Reuben
 
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