Benson Will Direct Marvel in MTC's That Face in 2010

By Kenneth Jones
23 Nov 2009

Elizabeth Marvel
Elizabeth Marvel

Manhattan Theatre Club's spring 2010 production of Polly Stenham's dark comedy, That Face, will be directed by Sarah Benson, artistic director of Soho Rep, and will feature three-time Obie Award winner Elizabeth Marvel, late of MTC's Top Girls.

Previews will start April 29, 2010, at MTC at New York City Center Stage I, 131 W. 55th Street, for a May 18, 2010, opening.

According to MTC, "That Face is a powerful and darkly comic look at an affluent family in freefall. Mia has been suspended from boarding school. Her brother, Henry, has dropped out altogether. And Martha (Elizabeth Marvel), their mum, manipulates them all. Money can no longer fix their problems — now it's up to them. This Olivier Award-nominated play from Britain's fastest-rising young playwright premieres in New York with the director of last season's acclaimed Blasted."

Additional casting and creative team for That Face will be announced in the coming weeks.

Benson's New York credits include the New York City premiere of Sarah Kane's Blasted (Drama Desk nomination, Obie Award); Erin Courtney's Quiver & Twitch (New York Stage & Film); The Lottery (HERE Arts Center). She moved to New York from London on a Fulbright for theatre direction. She co-curated the PRELUDE Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center for two seasons. At Soho Rep she has commissioned and produced work by artists including Annie Baker, Thomas Bradshaw, Cynthia Hopkins, Young Jean Lee, John Jesurun, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma and Anne Washburn.

In addition to MTC's Broadway production of Top Girls, Marvel's other Broadway credits include Seascape and An American Daughter (both for Lincoln Center Theater) as well as Taking Sides and The Seagull. She will appear this season at the Public Theater in Suzan-Lori Parks' new play, Book of Grace. Previous appearances at the Public include Henry V, Troilus and Cressida; King Lear; and Silence, Cunning, Exile. Other Off-Broadway credits include Fifty Words (MCC Theatre), Ethan Coen's Almost an Evening and Woody Allen's A Secondhand Memory (both Atlantic Theater Company), Dark Matters (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Terrorism (The New Group), Meshugah (Naked Angels), Therese Raquin (Obie Award, CSC), Misalliance (Obie Award, Roundabout), Arts & Leisure (Playwrights Horizons) and at New York Theater Workshop: Hedda Gabler (Obie Award), A Streetcar Named Desire (Obie Award), Lydie Breeze, Shopping and Fucking and Play Yourself.

MTC is currently presenting The Royal Family on Broadway, and Lynn Redgrave's Nightingale Off-Broadway.

For more information, visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.