VALHALLA
By Paul Rudnick
Direction – Christopher Ashley

Scenic Design – Thomas Lynch
Costume Design – William Ivey Long
Lighting Design – Kenneth Posner
Original Music and Sound Design – Mark Bennett
Choreography – Daniel Pelzig
Production Stage Management – Sarah Bittenbender
Assistant Stage Management – Erika Timperman

Cast (in alphabetical order):
Henry Lee Stafford; Helmut; Singer ………………………………………..Scott Barrow
Margaret Avery; Queen Marie; Princess Enid; Natalie Kippelbaum……..Candy Buckley
James Avery…………….…………………………………………………….Sean Dugan
King Ludwig of Bavaria………………………………….…………….….Peter Frechette
Sally Mortimer; Princess Sophie; Princess Patricia;
Marie Antoinette; Annie Avery……………………………………….....Samantha Soule
Footman; Otto; Pfeiffer; Princess Ursula;
Reverend Howesbury; Sergeant…...……………………………………….…..Jack Willis

Facility:
New York Theatre Workshop

Facility Address:
79 East 4th Street. Located between Bowery and Second Avenue in the East Village.

Prices:
All tickets, $60.00

Description:
Two NYTW favorites, playwright Paul Rudnick and director Christopher Ashley (who memorably collaborated on The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told in 1998), team up for the premiere of Valhalla, a comic and affecting look at two disparate and passionate individuals both searching for a life of operatic beauty. King Ludwig II was the real-life 1860's ruler known as “The Mad King of Bavaria” - madly in love with Wagnerian opera and remembered for dotting the Teutonic countryside with ornate castles. Ludwig's aesthetic passions are redoubled through James Avery, a dangerously precocious 1940's teenager marooned amidst the brown wallpaper and pink chenille bedspreads of Dainsville, Texas. Rudnick, with his trademark wit, intertwines Ludwig's and James's adventures in sex, war, glory, and architecture, and movingly charts the consequences of their obsession with the extraordinary.

NYTW has been working with Paul Rudnick and Christopher Ashley on the development of Valhalla for several years, including numerous readings of the play and a November 2002 workshop as part of NYTW's Jonathan Larson Lab.

Dates:
First preview, Friday, January 16, 2004; opening night, Thursday, February 5, 2004;
final performance, Sunday, April 4, 2004

Performance schedule:
Tuesday - Friday, 8:00pm; Saturday, 2:00pm and 8:00pm; Sunday, 2:00pm and 7:00pm

Exceptions:
Saturday, January 17, no 2:00pm performance
Sunday, January 18, no 2:00pm performance
Sunday, February 1, no 7:00pm performance
Monday, February 2, special 8:00pm performance
Thursday, February 4, 7:00pm curtain (opening night)
Friday, February 5, no performance
Saturday, March 6, special 1:30pm and 7:00pm performances

AfterWords (post-performance discussions):
Saturday, January 24, 2:00pm
Tuesday, January 27, 8:00pm
Saturday, January 31, 2:00pm
Saturday, February 7, 2:00pm

Running time:
Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission

About the artists:
Paul Rudnick’s play The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told ran at the Minetta Lane Theatre, following a sold-out run at New York Theatre Workshop. He is also the author of Jeffrey, for which he received an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and the John Gassner Playwrighting Award. His other plays include I Hate Hamlet, The Naked Eye, and Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach. His novels include Social Disease and I’ll Take It, both published by Knopf. His articles and essays have appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Vogue, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. He is rumored to be very close to Premiere magazine’s film critic Libby Gelman-Waxner, whose collected reviews have been published under the title If You Ask Me. His screenplays include Addams Family Values, In & Out, the screen adaptation of Jeffrey, and the upcoming 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives.

Christopher Ashley directed Paul Rudnick’s The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life, and the American premiere of What You Get and What You Expect by Jean-Marie Besset at New York Theatre Workshop. Ashley’s recent directing credits include the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration productions of Sweeney Todd (Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding Direction of a Resident Musical) and Merrily We Roll Along; the National Tour of Seussical: The Musical, the world premiere of Douglas Carter Beane’s Mondo Drama at The Drama Dept.; The Smell of the Kill on Broadway and at the Berkshire Theatre Festival; The Rocky Horror Show at the Circle in the Square (Tony Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations – Best Direction of a Musical); Paul Rudnick’s Rude Entertainment and Douglas Carter Beane’s The Country Club (previously at Long Wharf Theatre) at The Drama Dept. He received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Direction of Fires in the Mirror and Jeffrey, as well as an Obie for best direction.