Performances will continue through April 7 in the Pamela Brown Auditorium.
The cast includes Leslie Lyles (Absurd Person Singular, The Real Thing) as Mother, Dan Waller (Three Sisters at Steppenwolf Theatre Company) as Peter, Kris Kling as Stranger 1, Kate Eastwood Norris (Eat Your Heart Out in the 2012 Humana Festival) as Stranger 2, Danny Wolohan (The Body of an American at Portland Center Stage) as Town, Hannah Bos (The Veri**on Play at the 2012 Humana Festival) as Solvay.
Here's how the new work is billed: "Watch closely as Peter Gnit, a funny-enough but so-so specimen of humanity, makes a lifetime of bad decisions, on the search for his True Self, which is disintegrating while he searches. A rollicking and very cautionary tale about, among other things, how the opposite of love is laziness. Gnit is a faithful, unfaithful and willfully American misreading of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, a 19th century Norwegian play which is famous for all the wrong reasons, written by Will Eno, who has never been to Norway."
"I have worked with Will twice before — Tragedy: a tragedy at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Middletown at Steppenwolf Theatre," said director Waters in a statement, "and I am delighted to work with him again on Gnit as part of the Humana Festival. Will is a major voice in contemporary theatre and one of the funniest and most truthful writers."
Eno received the Horton Foote Prize for his play Middletown, which was produced at the Vineyard Theatre in New York and Steppenwolf in Chicago. His play Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into many Romance languages and Slavic languages. Eno is also the recipient of the Residency Five Fellowship at Signature Theatre. The production team includes Antje Ellermann (scenic designer), Connie Furr-Soloman (costume designer), Matt Frey (lighting designer), Bray Poor (sound designer).
The 2013 Humana Festival of New American Plays — underwritten for the 33rd consecutive year by the Louisville-based Humana Foundation — runs Feb. 27-April 7 and showcases six full-length plays, including world premieres by Jeff Augustin, Mallery Avidon, Will Eno, Rinne Groff, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Marks, Sarah Ruhl and Anne Washburn. Read more about the 2013 Festival here.
The Actors Theatre of Louisville is located at 316 W. Main Street in Louisville, KY. For more information and tickets, call (502) 584-1205 or visit ActorsTheatre.org.