Both plays will be presented at Second Stage Theatre’s uptown home, the McGinn/Cazale Theatre on Broadway at 76th Street.  The Bad Guys will run May 21 – June 17, with an Opening night set for June 4th.   Warrior Class will run July 11 – August 11, with an Opening night set for July 23rd.  Tickets for both shows can be purchased by calling the Second Stage Theatre Box Office at 212-246-4422 or online at www.2ST.com. 

Created as a program to help develop and provide exposure for the voices of a new generation of theatre artists, the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series (Christopher Burney, Associate Artistic Director and Curator), seeks to develop the skills of emerging playwrights, to provide early-career artists with the support of a major artistic institution, and to create new plays for the American Theatre.  Each show has a limited rehearsal period, as well as a streamlined budget. 

The series has helped launch and advance the careers of several up-and-coming playwrights, including Rajiv Joseph (Gruesome Playground Injuries and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), Leslye Headland (Bachelorette), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Good Boys and True, HBO’s “Big Love”), Adam Bock (A Small Fire, The Drunken City), and Brooke Berman (Hunting and Gathering). 

The series premiered in 2002 with three new American plays: …in the absence of spring…, written and directed by Joe Calarco; The Notebook, written by Wendy Kesselman and directed by Evan Yionoulis; and Hunt Holman’s Spanish Girl, directed by Erica Schmidt.  Second Stage Theatre Uptown was on hiatus in 2003 due to theatre repairs.  The 2004 season saw the New York premiere of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s The Mystery Plays, as well as Brooke Berman’s The Triple Happiness, starring Ally Sheedy.  In 2005, the series presented the New York premiere of the critically acclaimed comedy Swimming in the Shallows, written by Adam Bock and starring Logan Marshall-Green, as well as the world premiere of Dan O’Brien’s The Dear Boy.  The 2006 series featured two world premiere comedies: Getting Home, written by Anton Dudley and directed by David Schweizer, and Rajiv Joseph’s All This Intimacy,directed by Giovanna Sardelli.  The 2007 series featured Marisa Wegrzyn’s The Butcher of Baraboo, directed by Judith Ivey, and Joshua Tobiessen’s Election Day, directed by Jeremy Dobrish. The 2008 series featured Carly Mensch’s Len, Asleep in Vinyl, directed by Jackson Gay, and Rajiv Joseph’s Animals Out of Paper, directed by Giovanna Sardelli.  The 2009 series presented two world premiere plays: Zakiyyah Alexander’s 10 Things To Do Before I Die, directed by Jackson Gay, and Lila Rose Kaplan’s Wildflower, directed by Giovanna Sardelli.  The 2010 season’s series featured the New York premiere of Michael Golamco’s Year Zero, directed by Will Frears and the New York premiere production of Leslye Headland’s critically acclaimed hit comedy Bachelorette, directed by Trip Cullman.

Last season’s series featured two world premiere comedies: Michael Mitnick’s Sex Lives of Our Parents, directed by Davis McCallum and Anna Kerrigan’s The Talls, directed by Carolyn Cantor. 

Play #1:

The Bad Guys

World premiere

Written by Alena Smith

May 22 – June 17

Five childhood buddies reunite on a late summer afternoon for some beer, grilling and weed, but deep within their friendship lurk ghosts that rock the patio beneath them. Bitingly comic and ruthlessly recognizable, this is the story of a generation at war with itself over what it means to “man up.”

ALENA SMITH (Playwright) Alena Smith’s plays have been seen/developed at the Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Joe’s Pub, the Summer Play Festival, A.R.T. Institute, the Ohio Theatre, P.S. 122, Chashama, the Foundry, and the Yale Cabaret. Outside of the U.S., her work has been seen at the Southwark Playhouse in London, and at Theater Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany. She was a member of the Public’s 2009 Emerging Writers Group, and was a 2008-09 Artist Fellow in Playwriting with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). MFA, Yale School of Drama; ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting.

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Play #2:

Warrior Class

World Premiere

Written by Kenneth Lin

Directed by Evan Cabnet

July 12 – August 11

When Assemblyman Julius Lee makes a bid for Congress, the ghosts of his college days come back to haunt him. Nothing reveals true colors like a sprint to the finish, when friends become enemies and allies can turn on a dime. A political battle of race, romance, forgiveness and debt.

KENNETH LIN (Playwright).  Kenneth Lin's plays Fallow, Intelligence-Slave, Po Boy Tango (TCG Edgerton New Play Prize), said Saïd (Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition Winner, L. Arnold Weissberger Award, Princess Grace Award), Life On Paper, Agency* and Genius in Love have been seen at theaters throughout the country, including the Alliance Theatre, Northlight Theatre Company, Alley Theatre, People's Light and Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Marin Theater Company and East West Players.

EVAN CABNET (Director). World Premieres include: Outside People (Vineyard/Naked Angels), All-American (Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3), The Dream Of The Burning Boy (Roundabout Underground, Drama League Nomination, Distinguished Production), Oohrah! (Atlantic Theater Co.), Elizabeth Meriwether's Oliver Parker! (stageFARM) and The Mistakes Madeline Made (Naked Angels), Map Of Heaven (Denver Center), Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked! (Long Wharf, East Coast premiere), The Gingerbread House (stageFARM/Rattlestick), and his own adaptations of Ubu Roi and Salman Rushdie's Haroun And The Sea Of Stories (Williamstown). He is the recipient of the 2008 Claire Tow Award for Emerging Artists, the 2003 Bill Foeller Fellowship, and the 2002 Boris Sagal Fellowship. 

SCHEDULE AND TICKET INFORMATION

The Bad Guys will be performed at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre (Broadway & 76th Street, 3rd floor) from Tuesday, May 22- Sunday, June 17 on the following schedule:  Tuesday-Saturday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 2:00pm, and Sunday at 3:00pm.   

Warrior Class will be performed at the McGinn/Cazale Theater (Broadway & 76th Street, 3rd floor) from Thursday, July 12 – Saturday, August 11 on the following schedule:  Monday-Saturday at 7:30pm, and Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00pm. 

Tickets for performances of both plays can be purchased at the Second Stage Theatre Box Office (305 West 43rd Street) or by calling (212) 246-4422.  Advance tickets are not available at the McGinn/Cazale Theater.  Single tickets are $50; advance youth tickets (age 30 and under) are $20; and student RUSH tickets are $10 (available 30 minutes prior to curtain).  A 2-play subscription is available for $60.

ABOUT SECOND STAGE THEATRE

Founded in 1979 under the leadership of Artistic Director Carole Rothman, SECOND STAGE THEATRE produces a diverse range of premieres and new interpretations of America’s best contemporary theatre, including Tiny Alice and Peter and Jerry by Edward Albee; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Little Murders by Jules Feiffer; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo’s Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Painting Churches and Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and On the Stem by Ricky Jay; Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; Living Out by Lisa Loomer; This Is Our Youth and The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan; Some Men by Terrence McNally; eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; Everyday Rapture by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Crowns by Regina Taylor; Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein; Spoils of War by Michael Weller; Before It Hits Home, Jar the Floor and Birdie Blue by Cheryl L. West; Jitney by August Wilson; Lemon Sky, Serenading Louie and Sympathetic Magic by Lanford Wilson; and Metamorphoses and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci by Mary Zimmerman. 

The company’s more than 130 citations include the 2010 Pulitzer prize for Next to Normal, the 2009 Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Orchestrations, and Best Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley) for Next to Normal, the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed), 2005 Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical (Rachel Sheinkin, ...Spelling Bee) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Dan Fogler, ...Spelling Bee), 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play (Mary Zimmerman for Metamorphoses), the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, 26 Obie Awards, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Clarence Derwent Awards, 12 Drama Desk Awards, nine Theatre World Awards, 11 Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Critics Circle Award and 15 AUDELCO Awards.

SECOND STAGE THEATRE AT THE HELEN HAYES

Second Stage Theatre has acquired the right to purchase the historic Helen Hayes Theatre, located at 240 W. 44th Street.  With this new home, Second Stage will be the only theatre company on Broadway dedicated exclusively to the development and presentation of contemporary American theatrical productions.  Second Stage will also become one of only four non-profit theatre companies that own and operate theatres on Broadway.  The company will continue to lease and operate their original theatres on the city’s Upper West Side and in Midtown Manhattan.

For more information, please visit www.2ST.com

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