Following his sold-out Huntington Theatre production of Brendan, where he recounts an Irish immigrant’s voyage to US citizenship, and his off-Broadway smash hit starring Campbell Scott as the Midwestern journalist August Early in The Atheist, Elliot Norton Award-winner Ronan Noone continues his exploration of the American psyche in Little Black Dress at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre from October 1-24, 2009.

Turning the Midwestern rustic stereotype on its ear, Noone’s visceral game of risk conceals twisted dreams lurking behind the video arcade. Featuring Elliot Norton Award-winners Jeremiah Kissel* and Marianna Bassham*, along with newcomers Karl Baker Olson and Alex Pollock, Noone culls all the dark humor and pathos from the Kansas prairie where every girl wants to be Grace Kelly.

*Actors appear courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association

Ronan Noone (playwright) won the Michael Kanin National Playwriting Award, a university competition that involved 1,200 productions and 20,000 students nationwide, with his The Lepers of Baile Baiste. The Lepers of Baile Baiste was then performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2002, just as Ronan was completing his graduate work at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. That play and The Blowin of Baile Gall, the second play in his Irish trilogy, shared the 2002 IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Award for Best New Play. In May 2003, he received the Boston Theatre Critics Association’s Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Play for The Blowin of Baile Gall, also nominated for the American Critics Association’s Steinberg New Play Award. His recent plays Brendan and The Atheist (starring Campbell Scott) were premiered at the Huntington Theatre Company in 2007, and in April 2008, Brendan was named Best New Play at the IRNE Awards. In June 2008, The Athiest (with Campbell Scott) opened at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Off Broadway in October 2008.

Ari Edelson (director) has worked both in the US and internationally, with recent credits including: The Scariest (The Exchange, 45 Bleecker), Vengeance (Cherry Lane), Expats (The New Group (naked), NY), Jump! and Realism (The Exchange, NY), The Attic (Play Company, NY), The Atheist (Theatre 503, London), Blood Wedding, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Theatre Project Tokyo), True West and Tape (Tokyo Globe), Rape of Lucretia (English National Opera, London and Luxembourg). He has also worked with companies such as La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf, the Old Vic, Circle in the Square, New York Stage and Film, the Royal National Theatre, Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Vineyard, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The New Group and the Westport Country Playhouse.

In 2007, he took on the role of Producing Artistic Director of The Exchange (formerly Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre), one of New York’s oldest Off–Broadway companies. Other upcoming plans include the musical Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company with producers Margo Lion (Hairspray) and Amanda Lipitz (Legally Blonde), Journey from the Land of No, an adaptation of Roya Hakakian’s award winning memoir, and The Game, the bestselling book by Neil Strauss.

Edelson has extensive experience developing new work. In 2005 he founded the Orchard Project, an international incubator and theatre development center located in upstate New York. In just three seasons, the Orchard Project has fast become one of the premiere incubators of innovative work in the US, twice being cited as such by The New York Times. He also founded and is currently Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theatre’s Old Vic/New Voices US/UK Program, developing new plays in London and New York. The Program has created an official network of theatres in the US and UK, including the Atlantic Theatre Company, the New Group and Primary Stages in NY. Some participants of the program include Stephen Belber, Richard Bean, Henry Adam, Roberto Aguirre Sacasa, Rolin Jones, Julia Jordan, Lynn Nottage, Keith Bunin, Joe Hortua and David Grimm.

Edelson has been a guest director on attachment at New Dramatists, a Directing Fellow of the Drama League of New York, and has taught at Northwestern University, Fordham University and in Japan.

Edelson graduated from Yale University and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Compiled from the press release courtesy of Boston Playwrights' Theatre (website | profile | tag archive).

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