The Wooster Group will open the season at the Public with its production of Hamlet. The experimental ensemble will utilize video, sound and precise physical language, to present Shakespeare's work as a "wildly inventive, not-to-be missed artistic event." Elizabeth LeCompte directs a cast including Dominique Bousquet, Ari Fliakos, Alessandro Magania, Daniel Pettrow, Scott Shepherd, Casey Spooner, Kate Valk and Judson Williams.
The Brothers Size written by Tarell Alvin McCraney and directed by Tea Alagic follows with its world premiere. The production, a hit from the Public's 2007 Under the Radar Festival, "brings contemporary rhythms together with traditions of ceremonial presentation to tell the modern-day story of the Size brothers – Ogun, an auto mechanic and Oshoosi, a recent parolee," according to the Public.
Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face will also receive its world premiere at the Public. Leigh Silverman directs a cast including Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Kathryn Layng, Hoon Lee, Tony Torn.
"David Henry Hwang puts himself center stage with alter-ego DHH, telling his side of the explosive controversy stirred up when he led the protest against the hiring of Jonathan Pryce in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon," press notes state. "Truth and fiction are hard to separate as Hwang gives us a funny and moving backstage look at his search to confront the roles that race and ethnicity play in America."
Up next, Brian Dennehy, David Strathairn, Maria Tucci will star in the world premiere of Richard Nelson's Conversations in Tusculum. The play's contemporary political insinuations are made clear in the July 30 season announcement: "The country you love and the values it represents are being destroyed by a misguided leader. You can continue to live in relative comfort by not involving yourself, or you can take action to save the democracy you love. Set outside of Rome in the villas and hillsides of Tusculum, Richard Nelson continues his revelatory exploration of history with a new play that chronicles those entangled in Julius Caesar's world of manipulation and power."
The new season will also include the U.S premiere of Caryl Churchill's Drunk Enough to Say I Love You, which eliptically depicts the submissive relationship between Britain and America, directed by James Macdonald.
Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman will direct the world premiere of Little Flower of East Orange by Stephen Adly Guirgis. The production reunites the writer/director team behind such groundbreaking urban dramas as The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Jesus Hopped the A Train. Stephen Adly Guirgis and Philip Seymour Hoffman's latest collaboration is billed as "an inter-generational ghost story set in an upper Manhattan charity hospital."
The final installment will be a U.S. premiere from Sam Shepard, entitled Kicking a Dead Horse. Stephen Rea stars in the production "about the myth of the West, a Manhattan art dealer and a dead horse," according to press notes.
In addition to the Public's current season, after the closing of the Delacorte staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Joe’s Pub in the Park will make its return Sept. 19 - 30. Included will be three free concert presentations of the tribal rock musical Hair, Sept. 22-24. Casting has not been confirmed at this time.
Further information on dates and additional casting for the 2007-2008 season will be announced shortly. For further information on the current Public Theater season visit www.publictheater.org.
