DANA H.
BY LUCAS HNATH
ADAPTED FROM INTERVIEWS WITH DANA HIGGINBOTHAM CONDUCTED BY STEVE COSSON
DIRECTED BY LES WATERS
FEATURING DEIRDRE O’CONNELL

PREVIEWS BEGIN FEBRUARY 11
OPENING NIGHT FEBRUARY 25

Link to photos

Vineyard Theatre Artistic Directors Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern announce dates for Dana H. by Lucas Hnath, adapted from interviews with Dana Higginbotham conducted by Steve Cosson, and directed by Les Waters. Previews will begin on February 7 at Vineyard Theatre (108 East 15th Street) with Deirdre O’Connell reprising the title role for the New York premiere direct from engagements at Center Theatre Group and The Goodman Theatre. Opening night for Dana H. is set for February 25.

In Dana H., Dana was a chaplain of a psych ward where she met a charismatic patient, an ex-convict searching for redemption. A harrowing true story, Dana was held captive with her life in this man’s hands — trapped in a series of Florida motels, disoriented and terrified — for five months. Told in Dana’s own words and reconstructed for the stage by her son Lucas Hnath (A Doll’s House Part 2, Hillary And Clinton), “one of the freshest playwriting voices to emerge in the past five years” (The New York Times), this innovative work shatters the boundaries of the art form and our understanding of good and evil with the Los Angeles Times calling it “a profound contribution to the theater.”

Dana H. had its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre at Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles, in June 2019 receiving seven L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award nominations including Best Playwright, Best Actress, and Best Production of a Play. The production opened at The Goodman’s Owen Theatre, Chicago, in September 2019.

The design team includes scenic design by Andrew Boyce, costume design by Janice Pytel, lighting and supertitle design by Paul Toben, and sound design by Mikhail Fiksel.

Book tickets at www.vineyardtheatre.org or by calling 212-353-0303.

A New York Times Critic’s Pick, Is This A Room runs through November 24. Following DANA H. will be the world premiere of Tuvalu or, The Saddest Song, by Antoinette Nwandu, directed by Danya Taymor. All shows will be presented at Vineyard Theatre (108 East 15th Street).

Memberships are now on sale for The Vineyard’s 2019-2020 season and can be purchased online at www.vineyardtheatre.org or by calling the box office at 212-353-0303. Becoming a member ensures great seats to all Vineyard productions for a fraction of the full ticket price. Other privileges include the ability to reserve seats before tickets go on sale to the general public, discounted guest tickets, invitations to new play readings and Developmental Labs, and other exclusive benefits.

Vineyard Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre company dedicated to nurturing the voices of daring artists, and to developing and producing work that pushes the boundaries of what theatre can be and do. One of the country’s preeminent centers for the creation and production of new plays and musicals, our work seeks to challenge and inspire all of us to see ourselves and our world from new perspectives.

Notable premieres include David Cale’s Harry Clarke (2018 Drama Desk, Obie, Lucille Lortel awards); Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman’s Indecent (two 2017 Tony Awards); two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, Paula Vogel’s How I Learned To Drive and Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria; Nicky Silver’s The Lyons; Marx, Lopez and Whitty’s Avenue Q (Tony Award, Best Musical); Kander, Ebb, and Thompson’s The Scottsboro Boys; Bell and Bowen’s [title of show]; Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar And Grill; Polly Pen’s Goblin Market; Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Wig Out!; Jenny Schwartz’ God’s Ear; Will Eno’s Middletown; Becky Mode’s Fully Committed; Colman Domingo’s Dot; and most recently, Ngozi Anyanwu’s Good Grief, Jeremy O. Harris’ “Daddy”, and Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s Do You Feel Anger?.

The Vineyard’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and Susan Stroman Directing Award provide residences to early-career artists, and our education programs serve over 700 NYC public high school students annually. Works developed and premiered at our home in Union Square have gone on to be seen around the world, and The Vineyard is proud to be the recipient of special Drama Desk, Obie and Lucille Lortel awards for artistic excellence.

Vineyard Theatre’s leadership includes Artistic Directors Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern and Managing Director Suzanne Appel.

www.vineyardtheatre.org
Follow Vineyard Theatre on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

BIOGRAPHIES:
Lucas Hnath (Playwright, Dana H.) received a 2017 Tony Award nomination for Best Play with A Doll’s House, Part 2. Hnath’s other plays include Hillary And Clinton, The Thin Place, Red Speedo, The Christians, A Public Reading Of An Unproduced Screenplay About The Death Of Walt Disney, Isaac’s Eye, and Death Tax. He has been produced on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre, Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. His plays have also been premiered at the Humana Festival of New Plays, Victory Gardens, and South Coast Repertory. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, and an alumnus of New Dramatists. Awards: Whiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Kesselring Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Obie Award for Playwriting, Steinberg Playwright Award, and the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize.
Les Waters (Director, Dana H.), an Obie Award winner, was Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville from 2012–2018, where he directed The Thin Place, Evocation To Visible Appearance, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Recent Alien Abductions, Macbeth, For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday, The Glory of the World, Luna Gale, At the Vanishing Point, The Christians, Our Town, Gnit, Girlfriends, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, And Big Love. From 2003–2011, he served as Associate Artistic Director at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. His productions have been seen in New York at Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre Company, The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Connelly Theater, Clubbed Thumb, Soho Rep, and Brooklyn Academy of Music, and regionally at theatres such as Arena Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, Mark Taper Forum, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, and American Repertory Theater. In 2009, he made his Broadway debut with In the Next Room or the vibrator play. He led the MFA directing program at University of California, San Diego from 1995–2003.

Dana Higginbotham is a writer, educator and chaplain. For the past 20 years, her work as a chaplain in both hospitals and hospices throughout Florida has involved providing counsel for those who live with the effects of trauma, loss and life threatening or life limiting issues. She develops and leads workshops on “Stress Debriefing,” “Living with PTSD,” and “Bereavement Intervention.” The “Practical Spirituality” curriculum she developed is used to address both addiction and adolescent affective disorders. She holds a master’s of divinity and a PhD in counseling.

Steve Cosson (Interviewer, Dana H.), New York credits include This Beautiful City (Vineyard Theatre and Center Theatre Group), Paul Swan Is Dead And Gone, Times Square (The Civilians), The Abominables (Children’s Theatre Company), The Undertaking (BAM Next Wave, US Tour, Theatre de la Ville, Paris, 59E59), Rimbaud in New York (BAM), The Belle of Amherst (Westside Theater), The Great Immensity (The Public Theater), Mr. Burns, A Post-electric Play (Playwrights Horizons). Regional theater credits include Pretty Filthy, (I Am) Nobody’s Lunch, and Gone Missing. Cosson was a Metropolitan Museum of Art Artist-in-Residence from 2014-2015. SteveCosson.com

DEIRDRE O’CONNELL (Dana H.) makes her Vineyard Debut. New York credits include Fulfillment Center (Drama Desk Award nomination, Drama League Award nomination), By the Water (Lucille Lortel Award nomination), Little Children Dream of God (Manhattan Theatre Club); Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons – Drama Desk and Obie Awards), as well as work with Soho Rep, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Flea Theater and New York Theater Workshop, among many others. Regional theater credits include In the Wake (Center Theatre Group – Lucille Lortel Award nomination, Los Angeles Ovation Award, Richard Seff Actors’ Equity Award) and seven seasons at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Film and television credits include Diane, The Boy Downstairs, Gabriel, Synecdoche, NY, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, “The Affair,” and “Nurse Jackie.”

CENTER THEATRE GROUP, one of the nation’s preeminent arts and cultural organizations, is Los Angeles’ leading nonprofit theatre company, which, under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Ritchie, Managing Director Meghan Pressman and Producing Director Douglas C. Baker, programs seasons at the 736-seat Mark Taper Forum and 1600 to 2100-seat Ahmanson Theatre at The Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles, and the 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. In addition to presenting and producing the broadest range of theatrical entertainment in the country, Center Theatre Group is one of the nation’s leading producers of ambitious new works through commissions and world premiere productions and a leader in interactive community engagement and education programs that reach across generations, demographics and circumstance to serve Los Angeles.

GOODMAN THEATRE, “Chicago’s flagship resident stage” (Chicago Tribune), is a premier not-for-profit theater distinguished by the quality and scope of its artistic programming and civic engagement. Led by Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, the theater’s artistic priorities include new play development (more than 150 world or American premieres), large scale musical theater works and reimagined classics. In addition, the Goodman is the first theater in the world to produce all 10 plays in August Wilson’s “American Century Cycle.” Key to the theater’s success are its distinguished members of the Artistic Collective: Brian Dennehy, Rebecca Gilman, Henry Godinez, Dael Orlandersmith, Steve Scott, Kimberly Senior, Chuck Smith, Regina Taylor, Henry Wishcamper and Mary Zimmerman. Awards for artistic excellence include two Pulitzer Prizes, 22 Tony Awards and more than 160 Joseph Jefferson Awards. GoodmanTheatre.org

###