FALLING Begins Performances Off-Broadway at Minetta Lane Theater Tonight, 9/27

Producers Terry Schnuck, James & Catherine Berges, Crystal Beuerlein and Michael F. Neidorff today announced that they will present the Off-Broadway premiere of Falling, the new play by Deanna Jent, that will begin an open-ended run tonight, September 27^th at the Minetta Lane Theater (18 Minetta Lane, one block south of West 3rd Street, just off of Sixth Avenue). Opening Night is set for Monday October 15^th (7PM).

Lori Adams directs a cast that features Daniel Everidge (Grease, Fat Camp); Celia Howard(Fortinbras, Signature Theatre); Daniel Pearce (Broadway: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Off-Broadway: Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play; King Lear, Measure for Measure; Henry V; Henry VI(NYSF/The Public Theater); The Picture of Dorian Gray (Irish Rep); A Mother, a Daughter, and a Gun(New World Stages); and Love’s Fire (Public Theater); Jacey Powers (Off-Broadway: The Shanghai Gesture, Our Town); and Julia Murney (Wicked, Lennon, Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party [Drama Desk nomination], The Vagina Monologues, A Class Act, Saved, Crimes of the Heart, Queen of the Mist, andTime and Again [Lucille Lortel nomination]).

Falling is a new drama about how 18-year-old Josh, who has autism, affects the lives of everyone around him. When a relative comes to visit, the entire family is thrown off their equilibrium, with everyone trying to balance what is best for the family and what is best for them.

Falling will have set design by John C. Stark, costume design by Tristan Raines, lighting design by Julie Mack, and sound design by Raymond Schilke. Rick Sordelet will serve as Fight Choreographer.

Deanna Jent is the Artistic Director of Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, and a Professor of Theatre at Fontbonne University.  Other writing for the stage includes adaptations of the novels Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, and Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos.  Falling was developed at Mustard Seed Theatre in the fall of 2011 and won the 2012 Kevin Kline Award for Best New Play.  In addition, she won the Kevin Kline Award for Best Director of a Musical for her production of Godspell.  Deanna is a free-lance director and a former theatre critic for the Riverfront Times.

Lori Adams, a native Nebraskan, comes to New York City via Illinois where she is the Head of the Acting Program at Illinois State University. She directed the premiere of Falling at the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis, MO where it was awarded the 2012 Kevin Kline Award for Best New Play. She directed Fires in the Mirror at Mustard Seed Theatre in 2010. A lover of character-driven realism, her directing credits at ISU include The Grapes of Wrath, Picnic, To Kill a Mockingbird, Crimes of the Heart, A View From the Bridge, and The Diary of Anne Frank. Her coaching of the Irene Ryan actors for the American College Theatre Festival has garnered participation in the Kennedy Center National Festival five years in a row. As an actor she has appeared in Richard III, Macbeth and Henry VIII at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

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