The staging features Richard Bekins, Teagle F. Bougere, Zachary Knighton, Adam Rothenberg, Ted Schneider and Peter Stadlen. Birdy tells the story of "a man undone by the horrors of World War II and the friend who tries to guide him back to earth."
Performances continue to Dec. 21 at the Women's Project Theatre, 424 West 55th Street (west of Ninth Avenue).
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Designers are Riccardo Hernandez (set), Gabriel Berry (costume), Scott Zielinski (lighting) and Jill BC DuBoff (sound). Original music is by David Van Tieghem.
Playwright Naomi Wallace is a playwright, poet and recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, the grant popularly known as the Genius Award. Her plays include Slaughter City which was awarded the 1995 Mobil Prize and received its world premiere in January 1996 at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and One Flea Spare which was awarded the 1996 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the 1996 Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, the 1996 Kesselring Prize and the 1997 Obie Award for Best Play. A collection of her plays, "In the Heart of America and Other Plays" was published by TCG in 2001. Birdy opened on the West End in London at the Comedy Theatre in March 1997 and on the West End in Athens, Greece simultaneously.
According to WPP production notes, The Women's Project's former artistic director Julia Miles first met Wallace when she was a student at University of Iowa. Later, WPP did the first reading of one of her plays in New York City, forming a collaboration that continues.
Peterson directed Marlane Meyer's The Chemistry of Change in a 1999 co-production by WPP and Playwrights Horizons. Other New York productions which she directed include Collected Stories (MTC), The Batting Cage (Vineyard) and Light Shining on Buckinghamshire (New York Theatre Workshop) for which she won the Obie Award.
The Women's Project and Productions is the nation's preeminent non-profit theatre dedicated to producing and developing new plays by women. Founded in 1978 by Julia Miles, WPP has produced 112 plays and sponsored over 400 readings and workshops. Marya Cohn is the acting artistic director of The Women's Project.
For more information, visit www.womensproject.org.
Birdy plays Tuesday-Saturday at 8 PM, and Saturdays and Sundays at 3 PM.
Tickets are $45 and are available through Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200 or at the Box Office of the Women's Project Theatre, 424 West 55th Street.
