Goldenhersh, Sparks to Head Cast of Adam Rapp's Essential Self-Defense

Casting has been announced for the world premiere production of Adam Rapp's Essential Self-Defense, to be produced by Playwrights Horizons and Edge Theater at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Directed by Edge Theater co-founder Carolyn Cantor Orange Flower Water, Rapp's Stone Cold Dead Serious, the play will begin previews on March 15 and open officially on March 28, continuing through April 15.

The cast for Essential Self-Defense will feature Cheryl Lynn Bowers The Underpants at Classic Stage Company, Hotel Universe for Blue Light Theatre as Sorrell, Guy Boyd Sex and Longing on Broadway, People Be Heard at Playwrights Horizons as Chuck the Barber, Michael Chernus the film Winter Passing, directed by Adam Rapp; Living Room in Africa for Edge Theater as Isaak Glinka, Joel Marsh Garland M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, The Unknown for NYMF as Klieg the Butcher, Heather Goldenhersh The Class, Tony Award nominee for Doubt on Broadway, Goodnight Children Everywhere and Psych at Playwrights Horizons as Sadie, Lucas Papaelias It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Cellini at Second Stage as Todd, Ray Rizzo Finer Noble Gases for Rattlestick's Adam Rapp Festival of 2004, Essential Self-Defense for Cape Cod Theatre Project as Bob Beard, and Paul Sparks Landscape of the Body at Signature Theatre, Orange Water Flower and Blackbird for Edge Theater as Yul.

In Essential Self-Defense, when a disgruntled misfit Sparks takes a job as an attack dummy in a women's self-defense class, he finds himself mysteriously drawn to the repressed bookworm Goldenhersh who's beating on him. But all's not well on the mean Midwestern streets of Bloggs: With local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend and a motley assortment of poets, butchers and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town. Essential Self-Defense is a grim fairy tale with generous helpings of rock n' roll karaoke by the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of Red Light Winter, Blackbird, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Nocturne, Ghosts in the Cottonwoods, Animals and Plants, Finer Noble Gases, Faster, Trueblinka, Dreams of the Salthorse and Gompers.

The production will feature scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Miranda Hoffman, lighting design by Ben Stanton, sound design by Eric Shim and original music and lyrics by Ray Rizzo, Adam Rapp and Lucas Papaelias.