Playwrights Horizons is presenting This Flat Earth, a new play by Lindsey Ferrentino who also wrote Ugly Lies the Bone as well as Amy and the Orphans.
The production, directed by Tony Award winner Rebecca Taichman (Familiar, Stage Kiss, Milk Like Sugar at Playwrights; Indecent) is the fourth production of the theater company’s 2017/2018 Season.
Previews begin March 16 with opening night set for Monday, April 9 at 7 p.m. at the company’s Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street). The limited engagement is currently scheduled to play through Sunday, April 29.
Ferrentino won the 2016 Kesserling Prize, The Edgartown Foundation New Play Award, Laurents/Hatcher Citation of Excellence, ASCAP Cole Porter Playwriting Prize, Holland New Voices Playwriting Award and Paul Newman Drama Award.
The cast included Drama Desk and Theatre World awards winner Cassie Beck (The Whale, Prayer for My Enemy, The Drunken City at Playwrights; The Humans), Ella Kennedy Davis (Matilda, Mary Poppins, “Blue Bloods”), Theatre World Award winner Lynda Gravátt (Miss Witherspoon at Playwrights, Skeleton Crew, King Hedley II, The Old Settler), Lucas Papaelias (Essential Self-Defense at Playwrights including Drama Desk nomination for Original Music in a Play, Once, the film School of Rock) and Ian Saint-Germain (Tamburlaine at TFANA, “The Americans”). The production also features Grammy-nominated cellist Christine H. Kim.
This Flat Earth is set in a middle school in this seaside town where, as the theater says, “the unthinkable has happened, placing a bewildered community in the national spotlight.”
“Stuck at home in a state of shocked limbo, Julie (Ms. Davis) and Zander (Mr. Saint-Germain), two thirteen-year-olds, try to make sense of the chaos they witnessed, their awkward crushes and an infinitely more complicated future,” as the theater says. “But the grown-ups are no help at all.”
The production features scenic design by Dane Laffrey, costume design by Tony Award winner Paloma Young, lighting design by two-time Tony Award and three-time Drama Desk Award winner Christopher Akerlind and sound design by Mikhail Fiksel. Christian Frederickson is music director and Cole P. Bonenberger is production stage manager.
Performances for This Flat Earth are Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 & 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 & 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $39-$89 online via www.phnyc.org, by phone at (212) 279-4200 (Noon-8 p.m. daily) and in person at the Ticket Central Box Office, 416 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues).