Clybourne Park, With Original NYC Cast, Opens in L.A. Prior to Broadway; Frank Wood, Damon Gupton, Christina Kirk Star | Playbill

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News Clybourne Park, With Original NYC Cast, Opens in L.A. Prior to Broadway; Frank Wood, Damon Gupton, Christina Kirk Star The original 2010 Off-Broadway company of Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park — the drama about race and change in an American neighborhood — reunites for a Los Angeles engagement at Center Theatre Group's Mark Taper Forum. Opening night is Jan. 25. Previews began in L.A. Jan. 11 for a run to Feb. 26.

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Crystal A. Dickinson and Annie Parisse in the 2010 Off-Broadway production of Clybourne Park. Photo by Joan Marcus

Crystal A. Dickinson, Brendan Griffin, Damon Gupton, Christina Kirk, Annie Parisse, Jeremy Shamos and Frank Wood return to the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy, a riff on the American classic A Raisin in the Sun. They were first together for the world premiere at Off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons in 2010. Pam MacKinnon again directs. 

In Clybourne Park, which also won the Olivier Award for Best New Play, "Norris imagines the history of one of the more important houses in literary history, both before and after it becomes a focal point in Lorraine Hansberry's classic A Raisin in the Sun," according to CTG notes. "In 1959, the house, which is located in a white neighborhood at 406 Clybourne St. in Chicago, is sold to an African-American family (the Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun). Then in 2009 after the neighborhood has changed into an African-American community, the house is sold to a white couple. It is through this prism of property ownership that Norris' lacerating sense of humor dissects race relations and middle class hypocrisies in America."

Clybourne Park features scenic design by Daniel Ostling, costume design by Ilona Somogyi, lighting design by Allen Lee Hughes and sound design by John Gromada. The production stage manager is C.A. Clark.

Other plays by Bruce Norris include The Infidel (2000), Purple Heart (2002), We All Went Down to Amsterdam (2003 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work), The Pain and the Itch (2004 Jefferson Award) and The Unmentionables (2006), all of which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre. He is the recipient of the 2009 Steinberg Playwright Award, the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama, and the Kesselring Prize, Honorable Mention.

In L.A., in conjunction with the presentation of Clybourne Park at the Taper, CTG will present the critically acclaimed Ebony Repertory Theatre production of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Phylicia Rashad, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, now to Feb. 19. Tickets and information are available at CenterTheatreGroup.org, the Center Theatre Group box office located at the Ahmanson Theatre, or by calling (213) 628-2772.

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Christina Kirk, Jeremy Shamos, Annie Parisse, Brendan Griffin, Damon Gupton and Crystal A. Dickinson
 
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