The Attic

February 21–March 25, 2007
JapanU.S. Premiere
A mysterious company sells tiny “attic” rooms on the internet, perfect for shutting out the world.
Meet the Artists

Yoji Sakate (Playwright) is an award-winning theater director, playwright, and founder of Japan’s Rinkogun Theater Company, where he is the primary writer and director. He has also engaged in writing and directing outside the troupe, and has issued a number of collections of his criticism and plays. Sakate has produced exchanges with other genres, such as dance, music, and film. He is President of the Japan Playwrights Association and Director of the Japanese Theatre Directors Association. In his plays, Sakate explores social problems from a journalistic perspective through themes of the conflict between the social collective and the individual.   He has been active internationally, with performances in 15 cities in eight countries and joint works with artists in other countries.

Ari Edelson (Director) The Atheist (Theatre 503, London) Blood Wedding, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Theatre Project Tokyo), True West and Tape (Tokyo Globe), Rape of Lucretia (English National Opera, London and Luxembourg). Other work includes Old Vic, Circle in the Square, the Royal National Theatre, Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Vineyard, The New Group, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre and the Westport Country Playhouse. Upcoming: US Premieres of Anthony Neilson’s Realism and Lisa McGee’s Jump! Ari serves as Artistic Director of the Old Vic New Voices US/UK Program, The Orchard Project and the Exchange Theatre in New York City (formerly the Jean Cocteau Rep), and is a former Directing Fellow of the Drama League of New York.

Leon Ingulsrud (Translator) is a Founding member of SITI Company, as well as a member of Toga’s Suzuki Company; He is formerly a resident director at the ATM Arts Center in Mito, Japan. Directorial credits include: Endgame, The Hairy Ape, Macbeth, Martini Ceremony, Medea, Angel/Babel, Short Stories, The Sea, The Grapes of Wrath, The Tempest, Death of a Salesman, Saint Joan and three productions of Moby Dick.

Keiko Tsuneda (Translator) is an actress, producer and translator of both plays and books.  Japanese translations for the stage include: Stuff Happens (David Hare); a number (Caryl Churchill); Democracy (Michael Frayn); The Exonerated (Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen); Vagina Monologues (Eve Ensler), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Terrence McNally), The Dumb Waiter (Harold Pinter) and Mourning Becomes Electra (Eugene O’Neill). She received the 2001 Yoshiko Yuasa Award for theatre translation.

Michi Barall (Actor) Off-Broadway: An Oresteia (CSC), Hotel Cassiopeia (BAM), Queens Boulevard, A Few Stout Individuals (Signature Theatre), The Attic (The Play Company), Jump/Cut (Women’s Project), Carson McCullers (Women’s Project/Playwrights), Ivanov (NAATCO/Mint), Saved or Destroyed (Rattlestick), Sueno (MCC), Tartue (NYSF/Delacorte), Unwrap Your Candy (Vineyard), wAve, Middle Finger (Ma-Yi Theater). Regional: Arena, ATL, ART, Berkeley Rep, Brava!, Hartford Stage, Intiman, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf, McCarter, Portland Stage, Seattle Rep, Sundance, Williamstown. Film/Television credits: I Will Avenge You (opposite Giancarlo Esposito and Larry Pine), Personal Velocity, Pursuit of Happiness, and Welcome to Purgatory. Appearances on
ATWT, Cosby, Law and Order, New Amsterdam, Third Watch, and One Life to Live. AB from Stanford University, MFA from NYU. Michi is a student in the PhD program in Theatre at Columbia University.

Emily Donahoe (Actor) Off-Broadway: Great Expectations, Apparition, The Hasty Heart. Regional highlights: The Glass Menagerie with Rita Moreno and Honour with Kathleen Chalfant (both at Berkeley Rep), Shakespeare in Hollywood (Arena Stage, Helen Hayes Award - "Outstanding Supporting Actress"), Wintertime (La Jolla Playhouse), Philadelphia, Here I Come! (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Films/TV: Zelimo; Weeki Wachi Girls; Telephone; “As The World Turns”. Co-founder Apparition Productions, NYC. MFA – UCSD.

Fiona Gallagher (Actor) New York:  Trust (The Play Company); The Square (Ma-Yi Theatre); Bel Canto, The Seventeenth of June, Gretty Good Time, Posterity, Adaptation (E.S.T.); Women of Manhattan, Girl Talk (Barrow Group); Red Roses and Petrol (Irish Arts Center). Regional:  Williamstown, LaJolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Yale Repertory, Hartford Stage, Arena Stage, Denver Center, A.R.T. TV:  “Law and Order:  Criminal Intent”, “Law and Order”, “Feds”, “100 Centre Street”.  Film:  Trial By Jury, The Juror, A Dog’s Life, 2nd Best, Bad Moon Rising, and The Game Plan.

Trey Lyford (Actor) has been creating original works for the stage for nearly two decades and most recently with his theatre company - gimmick. He is an actor, director, designer and play fabricator committed to unearthing the tender honesty at the heart of silliness. His collaborations include: The Accountant, all wear bowlers (2005 Drama Desk Nomination, Innovative Theatre Award), Amnesia Curiosa, the OBIE award-winning kinetic junk sculpture play machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines machines, and the absurd magic show Elephant Room.

Brandon Miller (Actor) Off-Broadway: Arabian Night (The Play Company); Hannah & Martin (Epic Theatre Center).  International: Nobody's Lunch (The Civilians, Edinburgh Fringe, London's Soho Theatre); The Green Violin (SPBA, St. Petersburg, Russia). Regional: The Glass Menagerie, Blur and An Ideal Husband (Dallas Theater Center), Family Stories: Belgrade (Market Theater). Feature Film:  Adam & Steve. Graduate of Yale School of Drama.

David Wilson Barnes (Actor) Broadway: The Lieutenant of Inishmore.  Off-Broadway: St. Crispin's Day (Rattlestick), Men Without Shadow (The Flea), The Square (Ma Yi/The Public), Hamlet (The Public), Jersey Story (Cherry Lane), Mirandolina (The Pearl), Caucasian Chalk Circle (La Mama).  Regional: Britannicus, Olly's Prison (A.R.T.), The Scene (ATL), The Story (Long Wharf). Film: Capote, Ozark Savage, How To Seduce Difficult Women.  Television: "Sex and the City," "Law & Order/C.I./SVU/Conviction." MFA, Columbia University.

Caesar Samoya (Actor) Theatre credits include leading roles on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in Resident Theatre Companies around the country including, The Hilton Theatre on Broadway, Yale Rep., Le Freres Corbusier, Primary Stages, Urban Stages, Portland Center Stage, Paper Mill Playhouse, Prince Music Theatre, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Sundance Theatre Lab, Big Art Group, York Theatre and HB Playwrights Foundation.

Ed Vassallo (Actor) Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran. Broadway: Awake and Sing. Off-Broadway: Havana is Waiting, Streetcar Named Desire, Tale of 2 Cities. Television: 5th season on Soprano's (Tom Giglione), “Sex and the City”, all “Law and Orders”, “Six Degrees”.  Film: War of the Worlds, Roberta, Exiles in New York.

Takeshi Kata (Set Designer) NY: The Other Here (Big Dance Theatre), The Polish Play (Katharsis Theatre Co.), Birth and After Birth, Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Atlantic Theatre Co.), A Small Melodramatic Story (LAByrinth); Orson’s Shadow (Barrow St. Theatre); BFE (Playwrights Horizons); Gone Missing (The Civilians); The Pavilion (Rattlestick).  Regional: Alley Theatre, American Players Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Geffen Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Old Globe, Skylight Opera, Williamstown, Yale Rep.

Junghyun Georgia Lee (Costume Designer) is a Korean born NYC based designer. She designed for Audible Theatre, the Atlantic Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Ma-Yi, Public, Soho Rep, The Play Co., Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Alliance and Syracuse Stage. She was nominated for Outstanding Set Design for Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord. MFA, Yale School of Drama. junghyungeorgialeedesign.com

Tyler Micoleau (Lighting Designer) Originally from Maine, lighting designer Tyler Micoleau has lived in Brooklyn for the last 26 years. He has designed extensively throughout New York Off-Broadway, as well as regionally and internationally, for world premiere plays, musicals and operas as well as outdoor spaces and touring productions. He is the recipient of a Tony Award (for The Band’s Visit), two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Henry Hewes Design Awards, and two Village Voice OBIE awards.


Recent designs include Be More Chill on Broadway and London’s West End, the Public Theater / Disney musical Hercules in Central Park, Harvey Fierstein’s Bella Bella for Manhattan Theatre Club and the revival of Christopher Shinn’s Dying City at Second Stage Theater. Postponed or cancelled productions include David Mamet’s American Buffalo on Broadway, a remounting of Anne Baker’s The Antipodes in Los Angeles and the New York premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem for Lincoln Center Theater.

Bart Fasbender (Sound Design) Recent/current designs: Slag Heap, Women on Fire and 2003 – 2005 Mentor Projects at Cherry Lane; Boozy at The Culture Project (previously at The Ohio); Reasons for Return at Symphony Space and Are We Here Yet at Tribeca PAC for MoCo; Barbara Bush Never Slept Here, Gheri Dosti and William Hoffman's Shoe Palace Murray at Bernie West Theatre for Circle East; Trust at The Kirk and Sakharam Binder at 59E59 for The Play Company; Legal Snarls, Mark Medoff's Same Life Over and Lakawana Rails Radio Plays for TNT in PA, Pen Pals, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey's Woman of Independent Means and Joanna's Husband and David's Wife at PPT in VA.

The English language premiere of a provocative, dark comedy by one of Japan’s foremost contemporary theatre artists.

Written by

Yoji Sakate

Translated by

Leon Ingulsrud and Keiko Tsuneda

Directed by

Ari Edelson

Featuring

Michi Barall David Wilson Barnes Emily Donahoe Fiona Gallagher Trey Lyford Brandon Miller Caesar Samayoa Ed Vassallo

Set Design

Takeshi Kata

Costume Design

Junghyun Georgia Lee

Lighting Design

Tyler Micoleau

Sound Design

Bart Fasbender

Production Stage Manager

Scott Pomerico

Venue

59E59 Theatres 59 East 59th Street New York, NY