Cho, Katchor, Rapp, et al. Will Be Part of Vineyard Season

Works by Julia Cho, Ben Katchor, and Adam Rapp will be presented by The Vineyard Theatre as part of its 2007-08 season.

The season will kick off with the New York premiere of Cho’s The Piano Teacher, previewing in October with an opening in early November. The play will be directed by Kate Whoriskey, who also directed its world premiere last season at South Coast Repertory. The show centers around a piano teacher who contacts some of her former students and stirs up unexpected memories. Cho’s previous plays include Durango, BFE, and The Architecture of Loss.

Next up will be the new musical, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (Or the Friends of Dr. Rushower), to begin performances in January with a planned February opening. The musical, to be directed by Bob McGrath, will feature a libretto and drawings by acclaimed cartoonist and writer Ben Katchor and songs by composer Mark Mulcahy. Katchor’s drawings will form the animated background for the show, set in and around Manhattan and a tropical factory-island of exploited workers.

The Vineyard will also present readings of Goblin Market, the musical by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon that played there in 1985, and Nicky Silver’s hit 1994 play Raised in Captivity. In addition, the Vineyard will continue its Developmental Lab Series in the spring with Adam Rapp’s The Metal Children and Wig Out! by Tarell Alvin McCraney, the first recipient of The Vineyard’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. The Vineyard will also hold developmental workshops of The Burnt Part Boys, a new musical by Mariana Elder (book), Chris Miller (music) and Nathan Tysen (lyrics); and a presently untitled work by Pen. A third mainstage production will be announced at a later date.

For more information, visit www.vineyardtheatre.org.