MTC Adds The Whipping Man, by Matthew Lopez, to 2010-2011 Off-Broadway Season

Manhattan Theatre Club will mount the New York premiere of Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man as part of its forthcoming season at New York City Center Stage I. The play will begin previews on January 13, 2011, and open on February 1, directed by Doug Hughes. No casting or creative team members have been announced.

The play is set in April 1865, at the end of the Civil War. Caleb DeLeon, a Jewish Confederate soldier, returns wounded from the battlefield to find his family home in ruins, abandoned by everyone except Simon and John, two former slaves who were raised as Jews in the DeLeon home. As the three men reunite to celebrate Passover, and recall the exodus from Egypt in light of their own new liberties, they uncover a tangle of secrets—ties that bind them together and that, ultimately, might cost each man his freedom.

The Whipping Man premiered at Luna Stage in Montclair, NJ, and has had subsequent productions at Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, the Old Globe in San Diego and Barrington Stage Company.

MTC’s 2010-2011 Broadway season at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre includes Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters, David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People and a third production to be announced. In addition to The Whipping Man, the off-Broadway season includes Alfred Uhry’s Carl’s Sister and Beau Willimon’s Spirit Control.