- Joe DiPietro’s Fascinating History Play, The Second Mrs. Wilson, Completes George Street Playhouse’s 2015-16 Season
- DiPietro Play to Take Second Slot in Season, directed by GORDON EDELSTEIN
- My Name is Asher Lev will close season
- Individual Tickets for Entire Season Go On Sale MONDAY, AUGUST 10
New Brunswick, NJ – George Street Playhouse has announced that Joe DiPietro’s The Second Mrs. Wilson will occupy the previously to-be-announced slot in the New Brunswick theatre’s 2015-16 season. Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director of New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, will helm the production, which will play New Brunswick in advance of an anticipated New York run in 2016. Casting will be announced at a later date. It will run November 10-29, taking the slot previously occupied by My Name is Asher Lev. Aaron Posner’s adaptation of the Chaim Potok novel instead will end George Street’s 2015-16 season, running April 12 – May 1, 2016. “We are so excited to welcome Joe DiPietro in his fifth production at George Street, “ said Artistic Director David Saint. “I am equally as thrilled to welcome Gordon here to direct – I have wanted to get him to come to New Brunswick for some time. And with the possibility of a female president in the future, the show is timely as well."
Full season and flexible admission packages for George Street Playhouse’s season are currently on sale. Individual tickets for each of the theatre’s five productions will go on sale Monday, August 10. For tickets and information contact the George Street Playhouse Box Office, 732-246-7717, or visit www.GSPonline.org. George Street Playhouse is located at 9 Livingston Avenue, in the center of New Brunswick’s lively downtown, steps away from plentiful parking and dining options for every palate and pocketbook. Visit GSPonline.org to help plan your visit.
The Second Mrs. Wilson is the story of the woman who many believe served as the first female President. It is April 1915. President Woodrow Wilson (former New Jersey Governor and Princeton University President), reeling from the loss of his wife, meets, falls in love with and marries Edith Galt. She very quickly becomes important – and influential – to her husband, and inconvenient to his circle of advisors. With the first World War looming, the President falls ill, and it is left to Edith to outsmart the men of Washington who would derail her beloved husband’s dream of world peace and the League of Nations. But will her unstinting devotion to her husband’s ideals be their downfall? A fascinating look at the real-life events in which a woman became the de facto President of the United States, from the author of Clever Little Lies, Memphis and The Toxic Avenger.
Joe DiPietro is thrilled to be returning to George Street for his fifth show. Previously at George Street: The Toxic Avenger, Creating Claire, Clever Little Lies and Ernest Shackleton Loves Me. He is a two-time Tony Award winner for Memphis, which also received the 2010 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical. He received a Tony nomination & Drama Desk Award for Nice Work If You Can Get It. His newest comedy, Living on Love, recently debuted on Broadway, starring Renée Fleming. He also wrote the long-running off-Broadway hits, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and Over the River and Through the Woods.
Gordon Edelstein is in his 13th season as Long Wharf Theatre’s Artistic Director. In addition to his recent work on the world premiere of Athol Fugard’s Have You Seen Us? and his own adaptation of A Doll’s House, Mr. Edelstein directed Coming Home at Berkeley Rep and Long Wharf Theatre’s production of The Glass Menagerie starring Judith Ivey at the Roundabout Theatre. As a director, he has garnered three Connecticut Critics Circle Awards and during his tenure at Long Wharf Theatre, the theatre has produced world premieres by Athol Fugard, Paula Vogel, Craig Lucas, Julia Cho, Noah Haidle, Dael Orlandersmith, and Anna Deavere Smith. Over the course of his career, he has also directed and/or produced premieres by Philip Glass, Arthur Miller, Paula Vogel, Donald Margulies, James Lapine, Charles Mee, Mac Wellman, and Martin McDonagh, among many others, and has directed an extremely diverse body of work from Sophocles to Pinter, and from Shakespeare to Beckett.
Under his artistic leadership, Long Wharf Theatre has received 14 additional Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including six best actor or actress awards in plays that he directed. He was also given the organization’s Tom Killen Award, given annually to an individual who has made an indelible impact on the Connecticut theatrical landscape. Mr. Edelstein has directed countless plays and workshops for Long Wharf Theatre including the world premieres of BFE (transfer to Playwrights Horizons), The Day the Bronx Died (transfer to NY and London), A Dance Lesson, and The Times, as well as We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay!, A New War, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Anna Christie,The Front Page, and Mourning Becomes Electra, starring Jane Alexander. Prior to assuming artistic leadership of Long Wharf Theatre, Mr. Edelstein helmed Seattle’s ACT Theatre for five years. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in History and Religious Studies from Grinnell College in 1976 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Grinnell College in 2003.
In the 42 years since its founding, George Street Playhouse has become a nationally recognized theatre, presenting an acclaimed mainstage season while providing an artistic home for established and emerging theatre artists. Its leadership consists of Artistic Director David Saint, Resident Artistic Director Michael Mastro and Managing Director Kelly Ryman. Founded in 1974, the Playhouse has been well represented by numerous productions both on and off-Broadway – recent productions include the Outer Critics’ Circle Best Musical Award-winner The Toxic Avenger; the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Drama League nominated production of The Spitfire Grill; and the recent Broadway hit and Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof by David Auburn, which was developed at GSP during the 1999 Next Stage Series of new plays. In 2015, George Street Playhouse is represented by two productions in New York: the current Broadway production of It Shoulda Been You, and Joe DiPietro’s Clever Little Lies, opening off-Broadway this fall. Both shows received their premieres at the Playhouse. In addition to its mainstage season, GSP’s Touring Educational Theatre features three issue-oriented productions that are seen by more than 40,000 students annually. George Street Playhouse programming is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
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