Philadelphia Theatre Company Presents SEMINAR, Beginning 3/15

Competitive backstabbing alternates with supportive camaraderie amongst emerging writers and their famous professor in Theresa Rebeck's award-winning drama Seminar, receiving its Philadelphia premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company March 15-April 14 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (Broad and Lombard Streets). Directed by Scott Schwartz, the ensemble cast features Rufus Collins, Matt Harrington, Teresa Avia Lim, Genevieve Perrier, and Luigi Sottile.

Previews begin Friday, March 15 with Opening Night on Wednesday, March 20. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday until April 14. Tickets starting at $46 are available by calling the PTC Box Office at 215-985-0420 or visiting PhiladelphiaTheatreCompany.org. Philadelphia Theatre Company's Suzanne Roberts Theatre is located at Broad and Lombard Streets.

Fast, funny, and keenly observant, Seminar is a new comedy from Pulitzer Prize nominee Theresa Rebeck. Set in Manhattan's Upper West Side, a literary giant critiques the work of four aspiring young novelists in a series of weekly and unorthodox seminars. Insults fly, alliances are made, lines are drawn, and sympathies shift as this award-winning play unfolds. There's only one thing harder than writing your first novel - letting your professor read it! Seminar ran on Broadway for six months last year. It was nominated for Best Play by the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama League.

Theresa Rebeck (Playwright) is the author of Dead Accountants, recently on Broadway, Mauritius, The Understudy, Omnium Gatherum, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and many others. The creator of the hit TV series Smash, Rebeck's other television credits include Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Third Watch, and NYPD Blue, for which she earned several awards. She is also the recipient of the National Theater Conference Award for The Family of Mann, the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award for The Bells, and the IRNE Award for Best New Play and the Eliot Norton Award, both for Mauritius.

PTC began their relationship with Theresa Rebeck more than twenty years ago when she was one of the first young playwrights in PTC's Mentorship Project as part of its STAGES new play development program. Rebeck spent the year at PTC mentored by playwright Arthur Kopit and wrote Spike Heels which was subsequently produced by New York's Second Stage Theater in 1992. Her play What We're Up Against was part of the inaugural season of PTC@Play and has since been produced at Alley Theatre and San Francisco's Magic Theatre.

Scott Schwartz (Director) directed the Broadway productions of Golda's Balcony and Jane Eyre. His direction of Bat Boy: The Musical won Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical and a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Musical, and his production of tick, tick...BOOK! won an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical and a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Musical. Other directing credits include productions at The Old Globe, Alley Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center and Paper Mill Playhouse including three other plays by Theresa Rebeck.