SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN announces complete casting for KING LIZ

“SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN

IS A FERTILE INCUBATOR FOR NEW PLAYWRITING TALENT.”

-David Rooney, The New York Times

SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN

Announces Complete Casting for

KING LIZ

World Premiere

By Fernanda Coppel

Directed by Lisa Peterson

Featuring

MICHAEL CULLEN, JEREMIE HARRIS, RUSSELL G. JONES, CAROLINE LAGERFELT, IRENE SOFIA LUCIO, and KAREN PITTMAN

Previews begin Monday, July 13

Opening Night is Monday, July 27

At Second Stage Theatre’s uptown home

the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, Broadway at 76th St.

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director) continues the 2015 Uptown Series (Chris Burney, Associate Artistic Director and 2ST Uptown Curator) with the World Premiere of KING LIZ, written by Fernanda Coppel (Chimichangas and Zoloft) and directed by Lisa Peterson. KING LIZ will feature MICHAEL CULLEN, JEREMIE HARRIS, RUSSELL G. JONES, CAROLINE LAGERFELT, IRENE SOFIA LUCIO, and KAREN PITTMAN. Previews begin Monday, July 13th and opening night is Monday, July 27th.

KING LIZ is presented at Second Stage Theatre’s uptown home, the McGinn/Cazale Theatre on Broadway at 76th Street. Single tickets for KING LIZ are $25 and can be purchased by calling the Second Stage Theatre Box Office at 212-246-4422 or online at www.2ST.com.

Sports agent Liz Rico has money and an elite client roster but a woman in a man’s industry has to fight to stay on top. She’s worked twice as hard to get where she is and wants to take over the agency that she's helped build. Enter Freddie Luna, a high school basketball superstar with a troubled past. If Liz can keep this talented yet volatile young star in line, she just might end up making not only his career, but her own as well. But at what price?

This production of KING LIZ features scenic design by Dane Laffrey, costumes by Jessica Pabst, lighting design by Tyler Micoleau, and sound design by Darron L West.

CAST

MICHAEL CULLEN (Mr. Candy) has been seen on New York stages in Finks (Ensemble Studio Theater); Bug (Barrow St. Theater-OBIE Award); Len, Asleep In Vinyl (Second Stage Theater); Cobb (Lucille Lortel Theater- Drama Desk Award, Best Ensemble); Dark Matters (Rattlestick Theater); One Shot, One Kill (Primary Stages); The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Atlantic Theater); and Bus Stop (Circle In The Square). Michael has performed regionally at the Actors Theater of Louisville- Humana Festival, Denver Stage, Dallas Theater Center, Penguin Theater, Buffalo Studio Arena, and The English Theater of Frankfurt- Germany. Television credits include “Law And Order,” “Law And Order- Criminal Intent,” “Law And Order- SVU,” “Life On Mars,” “A Gifted Man,” “Ed,” “Third Watch,” and “NY Undercover”. Film credits include The Place Beyond The Pines, Margot At The Wedding, Dead Man Walking, Malcolm X, Clockers and the soon to be released Flesh and Bone.

JEREMIE HARRIS (Freddie Luna) has been seen Off Broadway at The Public Theater in Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1,2,3) and The Urban Retreat. Film credits include A Walk Among The Tombstones, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Pariah, Evolution of A Criminal, and OrangeBow. Television credits include “Bessie” (HBO), “Blue Bloods”, and “Person of Interest” (CBS). Jeremie was trained at The Juilliard School Drama Division.

RUSSELL G. JONES (Coach Jones) has been seen on stage in Father Comes Home From The War (The Public Theater), Ruined (MTC/Geffen/Intiman/Goodman - Obie Award), Our Lady of 121st Street, The Power of Duff (Huntington/NYS&F), The Call (Playwrights – Lucille Lortel Award Nominee), Whipping Man (Cleveland Play House), A View from 151st Street, and In Arabia We’d All Be Kings (Labyrinth). Film credits include Queen of Glory, The Ticket, Pinch, A Most Violent Year, Side Effects, Mania Days, Traffic (SAG Award), Companions, and Turntable. TV credits include ”The Blacklist”, “Louie”, “Do No Harm”, “Elementary”, “Law & Order”, and “Spin City.” Russell is on the Board of Directors of Labyrinth Theatre Company and has been a member since 1995.

CAROLINE LAGERFELT (Barbara Flowers) has been seen on Broadway in The Real Thing, Betrayal, Otherwise Engaged, The Philanthropist, Lend Me a Tenor, The Constant Wife, Small Family Business, Jockey Club Stakes, and Four on a Garden. Off Broadway credits include Indian Ink; Summer Shorts Festival; Guantanamo, Honor Bound To Defend Freedom; Hamlet; Phaedra Brittanica; Quartermaine's Terms (Obie); The Creditors; Cloud Nine; Close of Play; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Film credits include I'll See You in my Dreams, The Homesman, Minority Report, August, and All The Kings Men. Caroline has been in over a hundred TV shows, including recurring parts on “Gotham”, “Gossip Girl”, “Nash Bridges”, and “90210”. She also performed with artist Marina Abramović and did motion capture and voice on video game Dead Rising 3.

IRENE SOFIA LUCIO (Gabby Fuentes) was seen in Broadway’s Wit. Off Broadway credits include Love and Information (NYTW), We Play for the Gods (Women's Project), and Estrella Cruz: the Junkyard Queen (Ars Nova). Regional credits include Bad Jews (Studio Theater), Pygmalion (Cal Shakes), Romeo and Juliet, Master Builder (Yale Rep), After the Revolution, Golden Gate (Williamstown), Amadeus, and Macbeth (Chautauqua). Television and film credits include “Gossip Girl”, Stranded in Paradise (Hallmark Channel), and Casi Casi (HBO Latino). Irene holds a MFA from Yale and a BA from Princeton.

KAREN PITTMAN (Liz Rico) was recently seen on Broadway in Disgraced (Lyceum). Other Broadway credits include Good People (MTC/Friedman), and Passing Strange (Belasco). She was seen Off-Broadway in Domesticated (Mitzi Newhouse/LCT). Regional credits include Love in the Wars (Bard); Twelve Things (Denver Center); Neat, A One Woman Play (Kitchen Theatre). Television credits include “The Americans” (FX, guest star/recurring), “The Blacklist”, “Law and Order”, “30 Rock” (NBC); “The Good Wife” (CBS); “White Collar” (USA). Film credits include The Rewrite, Begin Again, The Bourne Legacy. Karen holds a BS in Voice in Opera from Northwestern University and a MFA in Acting from New York University.

CREATIVE TEAM

FERNANDA COPPEL (Playwright) is a playwright and screenwriter. Her play, Chimichangas and Zoloft, premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2012 and was published by Samuel French. Her work has been developed at New York Theatre Workshop, Pregones Theater, INTAR Theatre, The Juilliard School, The Lark Play Development Center, the Flea, the Old Vic (London), Naked Angels, and at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Fernanda is a member of the MCC Playwrights' Coalition and was a member of the Old Vic's US/UK T.S. Eliot Exchange Program. Her work has won the Asuncion Queer Latino Festival at Pregones Theater, the 2012 HOLA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting, and the 2012 Helen Merrill Award. She was a three-year Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at The Juilliard School and received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University. Fernanda's television credits include "The Bridge" on FX and "Kingdom" on DIRECTV.

LISA PETERSON (Director). Recent NY credits include An Iliad, written with Denis O’Hare (NYTW-2012 Obie Award, Lortel Award, Drama Desk nominations); To The Bone by Lisa Ramirez (Cherry Lane); Patron Saint Of Sea Monsters by Marlane Meyer (Playwrights Horizons); Shipwrecked by Donald Margulies (Primary Stages); The Trestle At Pope Lick Creek by Naomi Wallace, Slavs by Tony Kushner, Traps by Caryl Churchill, The Waves adapted from Virginia Woolf by Peterson and David Bucknam (Drama Desk nominations), and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire by Caryl Churchill (Obie Award for Directing), all at New York Theatre Workshop; The Fourth Sister by Janusz Glowacki (Vineyard Theatre); The Poor Itch by John Belluso; The Square by 16 writers; Tongue Of A Bird (The Public); Collected Stories by Donald Margulies (MTC); The Chemistry Of Change by Marlane Meyer (Playwrights Horizons/WP); The Model Apartment by Donald Margulies (Primary Stages); and Sueno by Jose Rivera (MCC). Lisa has directed regionally at the Mark Taper Forum (where she was Resident Director for 10 years), La Jolla Playhouse (Associate Director for 3 years), Guthrie, Berkeley Rep, Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, McCarter, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, and many more.

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SCHEDULE AND TICKET INFORMATION

KING LIZ will be performed at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre (Broadway & 76th Street, 3rd floor) from Monday, July 13 – Saturday August 8 on the following schedule: Monday-Saturday at 7:30pm, and Saturday at 2pm.

KING LIZ is part of a four-play package available beginning at $170 which includes King Liz (playing July 13 through August 8 at 2ST Uptown) by Fernanda Coppel and directed by Lisa Peterson; Whorl Inside A Loop by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott and directed by Michael Mayer and Dick Scanlan, Invisible Thread by Matt Gould and Griffin Matthews and directed by Diane Paulus and Smart People by Lydia Diamond and directed by Kenny Leon.

Tickets are $25. For more information call the Second Stage Theatre Box Office at (212) 246-4422 or visit at www.2ST.com.

Box-office hours at the Tony Kiser Theatre on 305 West 43rd Street are Monday 10:00am – 6:00pm; Tuesday 10:00am – 7:00pm; Wednesday - Saturday 10:00am to 8:00pm; and Sunday 10:00am to 3:00pm.

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ABOUT SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN

Created as a program to help develop and provide exposure for the voices of a new generation of theatre artists, SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN (Christopher Burney, Curator & Associate Artistic Director), seeks to develop the skills of emerging playwrights, to provide early-career artists with the support of a major artistic institution, and to create new plays for the American Theatre. Each show has a limited rehearsal period, as well as a streamlined budget. Lead funding for Second Stage Uptown Series is provided by the Time Warner Foundation.

The series was among the first established by a prominent Off-Broadway institution to help nurture and advance the careers of young up and coming playwrights. Since its founding in 2002 the Uptown Series has showcased the works of several established playwrights including Rajiv Joseph (Gruesome Playground Injuries and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, “Nurse Jackie”), Leslye Headland (Bachelorette), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Good Boys and True, HBO’s “Big Love” and “Looking,” “Glee”), Adam Bock (A Small Fire, The Drunken City), and Brooke Berman (Hunting and Gathering); actors Gavin Creel, Ari Graynor, Marin Hinkle, Halley Feiffer, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lorenzo Pisoni, Tracie Thoms and Tracee Chimo, among many others; and directors Davis McCallum, Trip Cullman, Carolyn Cantor, Evan Cabnet and Jackson Gay.

The series premiered in 2002 with three new American plays: …in the absence of spring…, written and directed by Joe Calarco; The Notebook, by Wendy Kesselman and directed by Evan Yionoulis; and Hunt Holman’s Spanish Girl, directed by Erica Schmidt. Second Stage Theatre Uptown was on hiatus in 2003 due to theatre repairs. The 2004 season saw the New York premiere of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s The Mystery Plays, as well as Brooke Berman’s The Triple Happiness, starring Ally Sheedy. In 2005, the series presented the New York premiere of the critically acclaimed comedy Swimming in the Shallows, by Adam Bock and starring Logan Marshall-Green, as well as the world premiere of Dan O’Brien’s The Dear Boy. The 2006 series featured two world premiere comedies: Getting Home, by Anton Dudley and directed by David Schweizer, and Rajiv Joseph’s All This Intimacy, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The 2007 series featured Marisa Wegrzyn’s The Butcher of Baraboo, directed by Judith Ivey, and Joshua Tobiessen’s Election Day, directed by Jeremy Dobrish. The 2008 series featured Carly Mensch’s Len, Asleep in Vinyl, directed by Jackson Gay, and Rajiv Joseph’s Animals Out of Paper, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The 2009 series presented two world premiere plays: Zakiyyah Alexander’s 10 Things To Do Before I Die, directed by Jackson Gay, and Lila Rose Kaplan’s Wildflower, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. The 2010 season’s series featured the New York premiere of Michael Golamco’s Year Zero, directed by Will Frears, and the New York premiere production of Leslye Headland’s critically acclaimed hit comedy Bachelorette, directed by Trip Cullman. The 2011 season featured two world premiere comedies: Michael Mitnick’s Sex Lives of Our Parents, directed by Davis McCallum and Anna Kerrigan’s The Talls, directed by Carolyn Cantor. The 2012 season brought The Bad Guys by Alena Smith and Warrior Class by Kennth Lin to Uptown. The 2013 series brought world premiere of The Tutors by Erica Lipez as well as the recent off-Broadway transfer, Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair. The 2014 series featured Bess Wohl’s American Hero, directed by Leigh Silverman, and Tanya Saracho’s Mala Hierba, directed by Jerry Ruiz.

ABOUT SECOND STAGE THEATRE

Under the artistic direction of co-founder Carole Rothman, SECOND STAGE THEATRE produces a diverse range of premieres and new interpretations of America’s best contemporary theatre, including 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Water By The Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes; The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown; Dogfight by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Peter Duchan; By The Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage; Trust and Lonely, I’m Not by Paul Weitz; The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz; Everyday Rapture by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; Jitney by August Wilson; Jar the Floor by Cheryl L. West; Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein; Crowns by Regina Taylor; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo’s Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan; Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants by Ricky Jay; Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller; Little Murders by Jules Feiffer; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; and Tiny Alice by Edward Albee.

The company’s more than 130 citations include the 2009 Tony Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley, Next to Normal) and Best Score (Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Next to Normal); the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed); the 2005 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (Rachel Sheinkin, …Spelling Bee) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Dan Fogler, …Spelling Bee); the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play (Mary Zimmerman for Metamorphoses); the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, 27 Obie Awards, seven Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Clarence Derwent Awards, 12 Drama Desk Awards, nine Theatre World Awards, 17 Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Critics Circle Award, and 23 AUDELCO Awards.

In 1999, Second Stage Theatre opened its state-of-the-art, 296-seat theatre at 43rd Street, designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. The Theatre supports artists through several programs that include residencies, fellowships and commissions, and engages students and community members through education and outreach programs.

SECOND STAGE THEATRE AT THE HELEN HAYES

Second Stage Theatre has purchased the historic Helen Hayes Theatre, located at 240 W. 44th Street. With this new home, Second Stage will be the only theatre company on Broadway dedicated exclusively to the development and presentation of contemporary American theatrical productions. Second Stage will also become one of only four non-profit theatre companies that own and operate theatres on Broadway. The company will continue to lease and operate their original theatres on the city’s Upper West Side and in Midtown Manhattan.

For more information, please visit www.2ST.com

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