Roundabout Underground announces USUAL GIRLS special benefit performance

SPECIAL BENEFIT PERFORMANCE

ANNOUNCED FOR ROUNDABOUT UNDERGROUND’S

SOLD-OUT ACCLAIMED PRODUCTION OF MING PEIFFER’S

USUAL GIRLS

Wednesday, December 19 at 7:00PM

All Proceeds to Benefit Roundabout Underground

CRITIC’S PICK! “Impeccably directed by Tyne Rafaeli. ’Usual Girls’ is exciting to watch. With hilarity and grimness, it connects the dots between pleasure, pain and shame.” – Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times

“SPIKY AND JOYOUS! It’s a gutsy, vulnerable piece of writing and part of what feels like an immensely heartening wave of intelligent, compassionate, unafraid-to-get-ugly plays that give us vital new portraits of the artists.”

– Sara Holdren, New York magazine

FOUR STARS! “Usual Girls is a primal scream of a play that wants to make you squirm, and it succeeds. If it seems messy, painful and upsetting, well, that's how it can feel to be a woman these days.”

– Raven Snook, Time Out New York

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) announces a one-night only benefit performance of the sold out Roundabout Underground world-premiere production of Usual Girls by Ming Peiffer, directed by Tyne Rafaeli on Wednesday, December 19 at 7:00PM. All tickets are $250.

All proceeds from this evening will directly fund Roundabout Underground, including commissions for Peiffer’s next play, Selina Fillinger’s New York debut Something Clean in Spring 2019 and more than two dozen readings and workshops for new work this season.

“When we launched Roundabout Underground in 2007 with Stephen Karam’s Speech & Debate, we didn’t fully realize the effect the program would have on the lives and careers of dozens of young writers and directors. It has been a joy to see the work of Underground alumni playwrights produced on stages around the world, as part of hit television shows, and win Tony Awards! Roundabout invests around $500,000 in every Underground production, an important and worthy investment that we have no chance of earning back with only 62 seats in the Black Box Theatre. With the success of Ming’s riveting and powerful play, I’m pleased we are able to host this event to underwrite a small portion of this investment,” notes Roundabout Artistic Director/CEO Todd Haimes.

Usual Girls opened officially on Monday, November 5, 2018 at the Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street). This is a limited engagement through Sunday, December 23, 2018.

The cast of Usual Girls includes Sofia Black-D’Elia as “Sasha, Older Girl 2, KKG Sister,” Abby Corrigan as “Anna,” Ali Rose Dachis as “Marina, Older Girl #3, KKG Sister,” Midori Francis as “Kyeoung,” Karl Kenzler as “Father,” Jennifer Lim as “Woman,” Ryann Redmond as “Older Girl, KKG Sister,” Nicole Rodenburg as “Lindsay” and Raviv Ullman as “Rory.”

How do girls grow up? Quickly, painfully, wondrously. On an elementary school playground, a boy threatens to tell on the girls for swearing – unless one of them kisses him. But just before lips can touch, Kyeoung tackles the boy to the ground. The victory is short-lived. Over the coming years, Kyeoung’s stories get stranger, funnier, more harrowing – and more familiar. This hilarious, explicit gut-punch of a play bursts with playwright Ming Peiffer’s bold, explosive voice.

The creative team includes: Arnulfo Maldonado (Sets), Ásta Hostetter (Costumes), Jen Schriever (Lighting) and Tei Blow (Sound).

TICKET INFORMATION:

For tickets to the benefit performance, please contact the Patron’s Desk at 212-719-9393 ext. 301.

Tickets for the regular run of Usual Girls are sold out. A limited number of Standby tickets ($25 - $35) are available at the Steinberg Center box office on the day of the performance. Details available at roundabouttheatre.org.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:

Usual Girls plays Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 7:00PM with Saturday matinees at 1:30PM and Sunday matinees at 2:00PM. There is no late seating for Usual Girls.

The Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre opened in March 2004 with an acclaimed premiere of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel starring Viola Davis, directed by Dan Sullivan. Since that landmark production, the center has expanded beyond the Laura Pels Theatre to include the Black Box Theatre and now a new education center. The Steinberg Center continues to reflect Roundabout’s commitment to produce new works by established and emerging writers as well as revivals of classic plays. This state-of-the-art off-Broadway theatre and education complex is made possible by a major gift from The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. The Trust was created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg to promote and advance American Theatre as a vital part of our culture by supporting playwrights, encouraging the development and production of new work, and providing financial assistance to not-for-profit theatre companies across the country. Since its inception, the Trust has awarded over $70 million to more than 125 theatre organizations.

Roundabout Underground’s home is a 62-seat Black Box Theatre, which is also used year-round by Roundabout’s education department for its activities including student productions and professional development workshops.

We gratefully acknowledge the Roundabout Leaders for New Works: Alec Baldwin, James Costa and John Archibald, Linda L. D’Onofrio, Peggy and Mark Ellis, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jodi Glucksman, Sylvia Golden, Judith and Douglas Krupp, K. Myers, Katheryn Patterson and Tom Kempner, Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, Ira Pittelman, Laura S. Rodgers, Mary Solomon, Lauren and Danny Stein, Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and The Tow Foundation.

Roundabout Theatre Company celebrates the power of theatre by spotlighting classics from the past, cultivating new works of the present, and educating minds for the future. A not-for-profit company, Roundabout fulfills that mission by producing familiar and lesser-known plays and musicals; discovering and supporting talented playwrights; reducing the barriers that can inhibit theatergoing; collaborating with a diverse team of artists; building educational experiences; and archiving over five decades of production history.

Roundabout Theatre Company presents a variety of plays, musicals and new works on its five stages: Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre, Studio 54 and Stephen Sondheim Theatre, and Off-Broadway’s Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre.

American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Roundabout’s 2018-19 Broadway season includes True West by Sam Shepard, directed by James Macdonald, starring Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano; Kiss Me, Kate, directed by Scott Ellis, starring Kelli O’Hara, Will Chase and Corbin Bleu, and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons starring Annette Bening and Tracy Letts, directed by Gregory Mosher.

Off-Broadway in 2018-2019, Roundabout’s season includes Apologia by Alexi Kaye Campbell, directed by Daniel Aukin, with Stockard Channing; Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, directed by Noah Brody in a Fiasco Theater production; Toni Stone by Lydia R. Diamond, directed by Pam MacKinnon, with Uzo Aduba; and Usual Girls by Ming Peiffer, directed by Tyne Rafaeli and Something Clean by Selina Fillinger, directed by Margot Bordelon at Roundabout Underground.