The New York premiere of Ruhl's Stage Kiss will begin previews Feb. 7, 2014, prior to an official opening March 2; the production will continue through March 23.
Directed by Rebecca Taichman (Milk Like Sugar, Marie Antoinette, Orlando, The Scene, Luck of the Irish), the cast will include the newly announced Todd Almond (The Tempest, People Are Wrong!, composer/lyricist of On the Levee) and Tony Award nominee Daniel Jenkins (Big River, Golden Boy).
They join the previously reported Clea Alsip (L(y)RE), Michael Cyril Creighton (The Vietnamization of NJ, Blood Play, "Jack in the Box"), SAG Award nominee Dominic Fumusa (Passion Play, Tape, Take Me Out, [sic], "Nurse Jackie"), Emma Galvin (Lidless, Our Town, Blood Play), Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht (The Assembled Parties, A View from the Bridge, Harvey, The Last Night of Ballyhoo) and Patrick Kerr (The Ritz, Endgame, The Warrior Ant, Jeffrey, The Devils).
Here's how the production is billed: "Art imitates Life. Life imitates Art. When two actors (Hecht and Fumusa) with a history are thrown together as romantic leads in a forgotten 1930s melodrama, they quickly lose touch with reality as the story onstage follows them offstage. Sarah Ruhl's singular voice returns to Playwrights Horizons with Stage Kiss, a charming tale about what happens when lovers share a stage kiss — or when actors share a real one."
Two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Ruhl's writing credits also include Dead Man's Cell Phone, Eurydice, The Clean House and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). Stage Kiss marks a reunion for Ruhl and Taichman, who previously collaborated on Orlando in 2010, as well as for Almond and Ruhl, who collaborated on her work Melancholy Play.
Playwrights Horizons also announced complete casting for Lynn's comedy Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra, which will begin previews March 28, prior to an official opening April 21. The production will continue through May 11.
Directed by Anne Kauffman, the cast will feature Maxx Brawer (Don't Go Gentle), Zoë Sophia Garcia (La Ruta), Rebecca Henderson (The Whale, The Retributionists), Will Pullen (Marie Antoinette), Chris Stack (Marie Antoinette, Killers & Other Family) and Sarah Sutherland (Beneath the Harvest Sky,"Veep").
"Carla (Ms. Garcia) agrees to marry Reggie (Mr. Stack) on one condition: to break down any walls between them, they'll reenact their individual sexual histories with one another, good and bad, for better or worse," press notes state. "Years later, these stories bring unexpected hope to their household, now forced to confront those barriers a second time. Kirk Lynn's tough-love comedy navigates the boundaries of intimacy, finding startling empathy in the story of a father hell-bent on saving his family."
Visit PlaywrightsHorizons.org for more information.
