For Immediate Release: July 17, 2006
Media Contact: Deborah K. Fleischman, for Philadelphia Theatre Company, 215.735.7356

Philadelphia Theatre Company is pleased to announce the receipt of a $160,000 grant to develop a new work combining movement, music, and projected imagery by leading theater artist Bill Irwin entitled The Happiness Lecture. The project will be developed during a series of workshops in 2006-2007 and will be the highlight of the company's inaugural 2007-2008 season at Philadelphia Theatre Company's Suzanne Roberts Theater, their new home on the Avenue of the Arts. The grant was received from the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.

"We are grateful to the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative for enabling us to continue our relationship with Bill Irwin whose appearance in our production of Trumbo won him a 2005 Barrymore Award," said Sara Garonzik, Philadelphia Theatre Company's Producing Artistic Director. "As a company dedicated to producing and developing new work by contemporary American playwrights, we are thrilled that Bill's newest piece will be a centerpiece in the first season of our new theater space."

Bill Irwin, celebrated as one of today's most beloved physical comedians, has won Tony Awards for the Broadway revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opposite Kathleen Turner, and for Fool Moon. He starred opposite Sally Field in the 2002 Tony Award-winning play Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?. The Signature Theatre Company dedicated its entire 2003-2004 season to showcasing Irwin's original work for which he served as writer, director, and star. He starred alongside Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and F. Murray Abraham in Waiting for Godot. His other Broadway work includes his original creation Largely New York, which received five Tony Award nominations and won Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and New York Dance and Performance Awards.

Recently, PBS rebroadcast its Great Performances series documentary "Bill Irwin, Clown Prince", which explores how Irwin creates his unique brand of theater as an actor, playwright, director, choreographer, and clown. In the fall of 2000, Irwin directed and performed his own adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose work Texts for Nothing at the Classic Stage Company, for which he received a nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance by the Outer Critics Circle. Irwin has appeared on numerous television shows including The Closing Ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta in which he starred, directed, and choreographed; Northern Exposure, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, The Cosby Show, HBO's Bette Midler: Mondo Beyondo, PBS's Great Performances 20th Anniversary Special, and Sesame Street. His feature films include: Love Conquers All!, Igby Goes Down, The Laramie Project for HBO, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey, John Turturro's Illuminata, Scalpers with Andy Garcia and Mike Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Michelle Pfeiffer, Kevin Klein, and Rupert Everett In 1983, Irwin was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer's Fellowship, and in 1984 was named a Guggenheim fellow and was awarded a five-year MacArthur Fellowship. He will be starring in the new M. Night Shyamalan film, Lady in the Water, opening July 2006, and has recently completed the film Dark Matter with Meryl Streep.

Philadelphia Theatre Company is Philadelphia's only non-profit professional theater dedicated exclusively to producing world and regional premieres of works by contemporary American playwrights. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director, Sara Garonzik, Philadelphia Theatre Company has had ever-increasing national impact having produced 34 world premieres of new American plays and musicals in its 31 seasons. Recent world premiere productions include: Some Men by Terrence McNally; Adrift in Macao by Christopher Durang and Peter Melnick; Bruce Graham's According to Goldman; Jeffrey Hatcher's A Picasso; Daniel Stern's comedy Barbra's Wedding; John Henry Redwood's No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs; J.T. Rogers' White People; David Ives' Lives of the Saints; three-time Tony Award-winning Master Class by Terrence McNally; Bunny Bunny by Alan Zweibel; and the American premiere of Birdy by Naomi Wallace. A Picasso received its New York premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club in April 2005. Philadelphia Theatre Company was chosen Best Theatre Company 2003 by Philadelphia Magazine, Theater Company of the Year by Philadelphia Weekly in 2005, Best Theater Company in the 2005 City Paper Readers' Choice Awards, and named Best Theater by Philadelphia Style Magazine in 2006. Since 1995, Philadelphia Theatre Company has received 99 nominations and 30 awards from Philadelphia's Barrymore Awards, most recently for Take Me Out (Outstanding Overall Production of a Play, and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Play [Kraig Swartz as Mason]), Elegies: A Song Cycle (Outstanding Music Direction [Kimberly Grigsby], and Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical), The Story (Outstanding Direction of a Play [Maria Mileaf]), and Trumbo (Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play [Bill Irwin]).

Philadelphia Theatre Company has embarked on a groundbreaking Capital Campaign in support of building its new home, the Suzanne Roberts Theater on the Avenue of the Arts, scheduled to open in Fall, 2007 when it concludes its 25-year residence at the historic Plays & Players Theater.

For further information please call 215-985-1400.

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