BEAST

Description:
An acclaimed writer for both stage and screen, Academy Award-nominee Michael Weller’s (Moonchildren, Spoils of War, Loose Ends, the screenplay for Ragtime) newest comedy is a blood-red road adventure directed by Jo Bonney (Fat Pig, The Seven). In Beast, two Iraqi War veterans—badly mutilated but as fiercely patriotic as ever—make their way home from a military hospital in Germany. Their marauding adventure across America takes them to Crawford, Texas, where they meet up with their Commander-in-Chief and offer a surefire solution to all his problems.

About the artists:
Michael Weller’s (playwright) best known plays are Moonchildren, Fishing, Loose Ends, Spoils of War and What the Night is For. His films include Hair, Ragtime and Lost Angels. He was a writer/producer on the television series “Once and Again”, recently developed his own series called “Just Like Home”, and is developing a pilot called “Nassau County”. Weller helped establish (and now serves as Supervising Mentor of) The Mentor Project of the Cherry Lane Theatre. Weller has won multiple awards including a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, an N.A.A.C.P. Outstanding Contribution Award and a Critics Outer Circle Award. He has also received an Academy Award nomination. He is currently revising the book for Zhivago, a musical based on the novel Dr. Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak. This fall, MCC will produce his play Fifty Words. Michael is also working on the book for the musical Rumours, featuring the music of Fleetwood Mac. Weller received his BA in music composition from Brandeis University, and a graduate degree in playwriting from the University of Manchester, England.

Jo Bonney (director). Naomi Wallace's Fever Chart (Public Theater Lab); Alan Ball's All That I Will Ever Be (NYTW); Eric Bogosian's subUrbia; Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play and Lisa Loomer's Living Out (Second Stage, NY); Will Power's The Seven (NYTW & La Jolla Playhouse; Lortel Award for Best Musical); Neil LaButes's Fat Pig (MCC & Geffen Playhouse); Some Girl(s) (MCC); Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Christopher Shinn's On the Mountain (Playwrights Horizons); Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics (Arena Stage); Universes' Slanguage (NYTW & Mark Taper); Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July (Signature Theatre, Lortel Award for Best Revival); Jose Rivera's Adoration of the Old Woman (La Jolla Playhouse) and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (The Public Theater); Diana Son's Stop Kiss and Anna Deavere Smith's House Arrest (The Public Theater); Jessica Goldberg's Good Thing (The New Group); John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (CSC); Danny Hoch's Some People and Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop (USA/Britain); numerous solos and plays by Eric Bogosian (USA/Britain). Recipient of a 1998 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Direction and editor of Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Text from the Twentieth Century (TCG).

Dates:
First preview, Friday, August 29; opening night, Monday, September 15; final performance, Sunday, October 12, 2008.

Performance schedule:
Tuesday at 7:00pm; Wednesday – Friday at 8:00pm; Saturday at 3:00pm & 8:00pm; Sunday at 2:00pm & 7:00pm.

Exceptions:
No performance on Saturday, August 30 at 3:00pm
No performance on Sunday, August 31 at 2:00pm
No performance on Tuesday, September 16 at 7:00pm
No performance on Saturday, September 27 at 3:00pm
Special student matinee Wednesday, September 24 at 1:00pm

AfterWords (post-performance audience discussion):
Tuesday, September 2
Tuesday, September 9
Tuesday, September 23
Tuesday, October 7

Running time:
2 hours with one intermission

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