Tonight marks the opening of Sam Shepard’s Heartless at New York City's Signature Theatre Company. The world premiere production, which has been in previews since August 7, has already been extended two weeks after its sold out preview run. “I still can’t figure out what one character was...but that’s what a playwright should do, [they] should make you think," said Mayor Bloomberg, who saw the production while it was in previews.
Like many of Sam Shepard's plays, Heartless chronicles a family on the brink of collapse. After a mysterious visitor arrives to the home of a dysfunctional Los Angeles family, Sally’s (played by Julianne Nicholson) ominous secrets begin to surface. The production also features, Jenny Bacon (In The Wake), Gary Cole (Office Space, The West Wing), Betty Gilpin (We Live Here), and Lois Smith (Broadway’s Buried Child).
Heartless is directed by the New York theater scene's rising star director Daniel Aukin, who has been praised for his stagings of Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles, Melissa James Gibson’s This, and his work at Soho Rep (the theater he ran from 1999 to 2006).
Heartless runs through September 30 at The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center in New York.
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