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NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP
TO PRESENT
WORLD PREMIERE OF
ALL THAT I WILL EVER BE

WRITTEN BY ALAN BALL

DIRECTED BY JO BONNEY

BEGINNING PERFORMANCES WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17

AND OPENING TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6

 

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 13, 2006 - New York Theatre Workshop Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director Lynn Moffat have announced that the world premiere of All That I Will Ever Be, written by Alan Ball, directed by Jo Bonney, will begin performances Wednesday, January 17 at 8:00pm, at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. Opening night is scheduled for Tuesday, February 6 at 7:00pm.

Alan Ball is the creator of HBO’s Emmy Award-winning “ Six Feet Under” and the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of American Beauty . All That I Will Ever Be, Ball’s much anticipated return to the theatre, is a richly characterized tale of cultural imperialism and our eternal search for belonging as seen through the provocative relationship of two young men in contemporary Los Angeles: Dwight, a privileged native Angeleno, and Omar, an enigmatic immigrant from the Middle East. All That I Will Ever Be is directed by Jo Bonney (The Seven at NYTW, the recent revivals of subUrbia and A Soldier’s Play).

James Nicola, NYTW's artistic director says, "For me, the most powerful element of Alan Ball’s work is his capacity to illuminate the dark corruption that lurks beneath a seemingly placid human surface. All That I Will Ever Be is no exception. One of the salient themes of All That I Will Ever Be is the plight of Omar trying to find the people and places to call home despite his status as an ‘other’ in our society. Alan Ball’s great gifts layer deeper levels of meaning, however, as the mirror turns back on Dwight as part of the dominant cultural force, exposing the culture’s complete inability to truly see anything beyond itself. True to the spirit of NYTW, Alan Ball and Jo Bonney spent time with us working on All That I Will Ever Be during our 2005 residency at Dartmouth College; we are now pleased to see the production on our stage here on East Fourth Street."

Alan Ball is an Academy Award and Emmy Award winning writer and director. He recently completed shooting his feature film directorial debut, based on his adaptation of the novel Towelhead by Alicia Erian, starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Toni Collette, Peter Macdissi and newcomer Summer Bishil. Ball was the creator and Executive Producer of “Six Feet Under,” the critically acclaimed drama series on HBO. The series garnered many awards including three Golden Globes (including Best Drama Series), seven Emmy awards and a George Foster Peabody Award. Alan was awarded an Emmy and a DGA award for directing the pilot of “Six Feet Under,” his television directorial debut. Alan’s first produced feature film screenplay was American Beauty, for which he received the 1999 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, the Writers Guild of America award for Best Original Screenplay, and the Golden Globe award for Best Screenplay, among others. His other television credits include “Oh Grow Up,” “Cybill” and “Grace Under Fire.” Prior to moving to Hollywood, he was a noted comedic playwright in New York. Among his numerous credits are Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, which premiered February 1993 at Manhattan Class Company, starring Thomas Gibson, Ally Walker and Allison Janney; The M Word, which premiered at the inaugural Lucille Ball Festival of New American Comedy in 1991; Made For a Woman; Bachelor Holiday; The Amazing Adventures of Tense Guy; and Your Mother's Butt. Born in Atlanta, Ball was raised in Marietta, Georgia. He attended Florida State University, where he majored in theater, with an emphasis in acting and playwriting. After college, he moved to New York, where he first worked as an art director for various trade publications.

Jo Bonney's recent directing credits include Eric Bogosian’s subUrbia (Second Stage); Will Power’s The Seven (New York Theatre Workshop); Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play (Second Stage); Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Christopher Shinn's On the Mountain (Playwrights Horizons); Neil LaBute's Fat Pig (MCC); Lisa Loomer's Living Out (Second Stage); and Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics (Arena Stage, Washington, DC). Other credits include Universes' Slanguage (New York Theatre Workshop/Mark Taper Forum); Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July (Signature Theatre, NYC) (Lucille Lortel Award); Jose Rivera's Adoration of the Old Woman (La Jolla Playhouse) and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (The Public Theater); Eric Bogosian's Humpty Dumpty (McCarter Theater); subUrbia (Studio Theatre, Washington, DC); FunHouse; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll; Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (USA/Britain); Diana Son's Stop Kiss and Anna Deavere Smith's House Arrest (The Public Theater); Jessica Goldberg's Good Thing (The New Group); John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (Classic Stage Company); Danny Hoch's Some People and Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop (USA/Britain). Bonney is the recipient of a 1998 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Direction and the editor of "Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century" (TCG). 

The cast of All That I Will Ever Be includes Patch Darragh, Kandiss Edmundson, Austin Lysy (playing the role of Dwight), Peter Macdissi (Omar), David Margulies and Victor Slezak.

Scenic design for All That I Will Ever Be is by Neil Patel; costume design by Emilio Sosa; lighting design by David Lander; sound design by Darron L West; and the production stage manager is Larry K. Ash.

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. Since its founding in 1979, NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents five to seven new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 60,000 audience members. Over the past twenty-five years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, and Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

All That I Will Ever Be plays at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. The regular performance schedule is Tuesday at 7:00pm, Wednesday through Friday at 8:00pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:00pm, and Sunday at 2:00pm and 7:00pm. The running time is approximately two hours with one intermission. Tickets are $60 and may be purchased on-line at www.telecharge.com, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or by phoning Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200. For exact dates and times of performance, call Telecharge.com.

Maintaining its commitment to making theatre accessible to all theatergoers, NYTW continues its CheapTix program in which all tickets for all Sunday evening performances will cost $20. Tickets may be purchased in advance, payable in cash only, and are available in person only at the NYTW Box Office. And for all performances, student tickets cost $20, based on availability, and can be purchased in advance from the NYTW Box Office with valid student identification. The NYTW Box Office is open 1:00pm to 6:00pm, Tuesday through Saturday.