Roundabout commissioned The Language Archive, which won the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an award given to an outstanding new English-language play by a woman. Roundabout associate artist Mark Brokaw will direct, at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Steinberg Center on West 46th Street.
Sam Gold will direct Tigers Be Still at the Black Box Theatre at the Steinberg as part of Roundabout Underground. Roundabout Underground's mission is to showcase new plays "that will either allow an experienced director to go back to his/her creative roots or give a debut production to an emerging writer or director."
Cast, dates and creative teams will be announced later.
The Language Archive is billed as "a poignant and quirky comedy that seems to prove love is the one language that can leave us all at a loss for words. George is a man consumed with preserving and documenting the dying languages of far-flung cultures. Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He doesn't know what to say to his wife, Mary, to keep her from leaving him, and he doesn't recognize the deep feelings that his lab assistant, Emma, has for him."
Roundabout Theatre Company commissioned the play, which will have its world premiere at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA, March 25-April 25, before traveling to Roundabout. Cho is the author of The Piano Teacher, Durango, The Winchester House, BFE, The Architecture of Loss and 99 Histories.
Brokaw directed After Miss Julie, Distracted, Suddenly Last Summer and The Constant Wife for Roundabout.
Tigers Be Still is billed as "a comedy that follows the story of Sherry Wickman, a young woman who expects the perfect career and life to fall into place immediately upon earning her masters degree in art therapy. Instead, Sherry finds herself unemployed, overwhelmed and back at home hiding out in her twin-sized childhood bed. But when Sherry gets hired as a substitute art teacher, things begin to brighten up. Now if only her mother would come downstairs, her sister would get off the couch, her very first therapy patient would do just one of his take-home assignments, her new boss would leave his gun at home, and someone would catch the tiger that escaped from the local zoo, everything would be just perfect."
Playwright Rosenstock is currently earning her MFA in playwriting under the mentorship of Paula Vogel at the Yale School of Drama where she is the recipient of the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship. Her work has been developed and produced by The Kennedy Center, Ars Nova, The Old Vic in association with The Public Theater, Voice and Vision, the NY Fringe Festival, Vital Theatre and New York Stage & Film. Her play 99 Ways To Fuck A Swan was featured in Portland Center Stage's 2009 JAW Playwrights Festival. She was the artistic director of the 2009 Yale Summer Cabaret where she produced several shows including Fly-By-Night, a new indie rock musical she co-wrote about star-crossed love and blackouts.
Gold most recently directed the critically acclaimed production of Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation at Playwrights Horizons.
For more information, visit roundabouttheatre.com.
