New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that I Got Sick Then I Got Better, written and performed by Jenny Allen, and directed by James Lapine and Darren Katz, will play performances on four consecutive Mondays beginning Monday, September 14, at 8pm, at NYTW, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. The play will run through Monday, October 5.
I Got Sick Then I Got Better is a wrenching comic riff on one woman's adventures after falling down the medical rabbit hole. Diagnosed with and treated for ovarian cancer in 2005, writer and performer Jenny Allen (The New Yorker, The New York Times) tells her story of the harrowing tailspin she took following her diagnosis, combining biting humor with searing emotion in a witty, bittersweet monologue that limns the personal and family collateral damage a life-threatening illness brings.
Jenny Allen is a writer and performer. Her profiles, essays and reviews have appeared for years in many magazines, including The New York Times, New York, Vogue, Esquire, Life, and More. She is the author of a collection of fables for grown-ups called "The Long Chalkboard," illustrated by her husband, Jules Feiffer. She helped originate the 80's comedy group "serious Bizness," and has performed in productions of Jules' Blues and in readings of Spalding Grey: Stories Left to Tell. She produces and performs stand-up comedy evenings in Manhattan. I Got Sick Then I Got Better, was first performed on Martha's Vineyard in the summer of 2007. She and her husband have two children, Halley, 23, an actress, and Julie, 13, a ninth grader. They live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
James Lapine is regarded as one of the preeminent artists working in the contemporary theater today. Distinguished as both a writer and a director, he has been nominated for eleven Tony Awards, winning on three occasions. His work has also been recognized with six Drama Desk Awards, an Obie Award, the British Evening Standard Award, an Oliver Award, and the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mr. Lapine is perhaps best known for his collaborations as librettist and director with Stephen Sondheim: Sunday in the Park With George, Into The Woods, and Passion. With William Finn he collaborated on March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, later presented on Broadway as Falsettos. Other Broadway credits include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Michel Legrand's Amour, the revival of The Diary of Anne Frank," starring Natalie Portman, David Henry Hwang's Golden Child, and his collaboration with Claudia Shear, Dirty Blonde. He wrote the book and directed Disney's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, which premiered in Berlin in 1999 and ran for three years. He has written the plays Table Settings; Twelve Dreams; Luck, Pluck and Virtue; The Moment When; and Fran's Bed, which starred Mia Farrow. For the New York Shakespeare Festival, Mr. Lapine directed A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, and King Lear, starring Kevin Kline. Mr. Lapine has directed the films Impromptu (Hugh Grant and Judy Davis), Life with Mikey (Michael J. Fox) and "Earthly Possessions" (Susan Sarandon), as well as the teleVision Productions of "Into The Woods" and "Passion."
Darren Katz is currently directing Happy Sunshine Kung Fu Flower at the Zipper Factory, and working on the development of three new music-theater projects inspired by documented events in the lives of Lorena Hickok, Anthony Martinez (aka "the Naked Guy") and artist Henry Darger. Darren was Resident Director for the Broadway production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, as well as Associate Director for the San Francisco/Boston and the first national touring productions. He is directing the second national tour this fall. As Assistant Director he has worked with James Lapine, Michael Blakemore, Scott Ellis, Lois Weaver, and Holly Hughes. Darren holds a BA in Urban Studies with a concentration in Architecture from Columbia University.
New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), now celebrating its 26th season, is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. 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 three to five new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 45,000 audience members. Over the past 26 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.
I Got Sick Then I Got Better plays Mondays at 8pm at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. Tickets are $45 and may be purchased online at www.telecharge.com, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or by phoning Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200. For more information, visit www.nytw.org.
