Trinity Rep heats it up this winter with Topdog/Underdog, an explosive drama by Suzan-Lori Parks, one of America's most acclaimed writers and the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Director Kent Gash (Ain't Misbehavin') returns to Providence along with versatile performers Joe Wilson, Jr. (Ain't Misbehavin') and Kes Khemnu (A Preface to the Alien Garden, The Piano Lesson, Cider House Rules).

In a groundbreaking move, Gash has rehearsed the actors in this two-man show to perform both roles - alternating each performance during the run of the play. Author Suzan-Lori Parks' blazing vision of sibling rivalry boasts dialogue that crackles with the musicality of jazz and culminates in a climax of dizzying passion and intensity. Topdog/Underdog opens in previews January 7th in the intimate Dowling Theater, and contains mature themes and situations. Tickets are on sale now at the Trinity Rep box office, (401) 351-4242 and online.

The first performance, January 7th at 8:00 pm, is Pay What You Can (PWYC). PWYC tickets go on sale at the box office at 7:00 pm, limit one per person. Preview performances for Topdog/Underdog are only $28 from January 7th – 12th. Trinity Rep’s season is sponsored by NBC 10, with supporting sponsors Cardi’s Furniture, Rhode Island Monthly, RIPTA, RISCA, and The Gatehouse Restaurant and Catering Company. Produced in association with the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, GA and the New Repertory Theatre, Newton Highlands, MA.

“This historic work is one of the most exciting and moving plays I have ever seen,” says Gash. “I knew that alternating these two actors, whom Trinity audiences know well, would make this the richest production possible. Not only would they be learning from each others' work and from this outrageous play, but it would always be fresh. Audiences will have the chance to see not just one production of this modern classic but two entirely different portrayals of these African-American brothers.”

On the intimate Dowling Stage, two brothers share their lives together in a cramped room. Named Lincoln and Booth by their father as a joke, the two abandoned brothers have come to depend on each other for everything. Each hustles for a living – Booth, a natural-born thief and Lincoln, once a three-card master, in an amusement arcade. As Lincoln is trying to keep away from the lure of hustling cards, Booth is drawing nearer to the temptation. As the two brothers navigate a combustible world of violence, poverty and disadvantage, each alternately assumes the role of “topdog” in the relationship, but only one can remain so.

This co-production is currently premiering at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater where it has been praised by audiences and critics alike. “At long last, one of the most potent plays of our time….first rate” stated the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If you've worried that contemporary plays aren't vital enough, or that their language isn't rich enough, there's no need to fear. Topdog/Underdog is here,” Creative Loafing raves. When the play blasted onto the Broadway stage two years ago, The New York Times dubbed it “the most exciting new home-grown play to hit Broadway since Angels in America.”

Kent Gash (Director) is also the Associate Artistic Director of The Alliance Theatre Company in Atlanta where this production of Topdog/Underdog premiered to much acclaim. Recently, he brought Trinity audiences to their feet with the rousing season opener Ain’t Misbehavin’. His direction of Pacific Overtures at the North Shore Music Theatre won The Elliot Norton Award for Best Musical of 2003 and nine Independent Reviewers of New England Awards (IRNE’s). Also a former Associate Artistic Director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, his regional theater credits include work with Theatre Virginia, Delaware Theatre Company, Geffen Playhouse, Kennedy Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Carnegie-Mellon.

Joining Director Kent Gash is the creative team of Eugene Lee (Tony Award winning Set Designer), Alvin Perry (Costume Designer), Liz Lee (Lighting Designer), Justin Ellington (Composer), Clay Benning (Sound Designer) and Freddie Ashley (Dramaturg).

After receiving a MacArthur "Genius Grant" award in 2001, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in drama for Topdog/Underdog. She is a playwright and screenwriter whose other works include, F--king A, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, The Sinners Place, Devotees in the Garden of Love, Betting on the Dust Commander, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 Obie Award for Best New American Play), The America Play, Venus (1996 Obie Award) and In the Blood. Parks is an alumna of New Dramatists, an Associate Artist at Yale Rep, and has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Kennedy Centre Fund for New American Plays, The W. Alton Jones Foundation, Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, TCG-Pew Charitable Trusts and is a two-time playwriting fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Parks has been a playwriting professor at universities around the country including The Yale School of Drama and recently ran the Dramatic writing program at Cal Arts. Her first feature film was Girl 6, directed by Spike Lee and her screenplay for The Great Debaters is slated to be directed by Denzel Washington.

Trinity Rep’s 41st season continues with The Moliere Impromptu, conceived by Christopher Bayes, adapted and translated by Rinne Groff; You Never Know a new musical by Charles Strouse; and Drew Hayden Taylor’s The Buz’Gem Blues

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