CAST SET FOR BATHSHEBA DORAN’S “THE MYSTERY OF LOVE & SEX”

AT THE CTG/MARK TAPER FORUM FEBRUARY 10 THROUGH MARCH 20, 2016

The Cast Features Sharon Lawrence, David Pittu, York Walker and Mae Whitman

Center Theatre Group has announced the casting for the West Coast premiere of “The Mystery of Love & Sex,” written by Bathsheba Doran.

“The Mystery of Love & Sex” will be performed at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum February 10 through March 20, 2016. The opening is set for February 21.

Directed by Robert Egan (Artistic Director/Producer of the Ojai Playwrights Conference) the production features, in alphabetical order, Sharon Lawrence (“NYPD Blue,” “Rizzoli and Isles,” “Poor Behavior” at the Taper ), David Pittu (“Is He Dead?” and “LoveMusik,” Broadway; “Parade,” national tour), York Walker (“One Night in Miami,” Denver Center; “Napoli,” ACT; “A Raisin In The Sun,” California Shakespeare Theater) and Mae Whitman (“Speech and Debate,” The Blank Theatre; the film “The Duff” and TV’s “Parenthood”).

Insightful and compassionate, “The Mystery of Love & Sex” is the story of four people whose lives are inextricably intertwined. Charlotte and Jonny are two college students who have been friends since they were nine years old. Attending college together, they contemplate taking their relationship to a romantic level, but Charlotte’s parents don’t take the news very well, and an onslaught of uncomfortable truths about all four of them is unleashed.

Charles Isherwood (The New York Times) said of the play’s world premiere at Lincoln Center Theater in March 2015, “Ms. Doran’s drama is so packed with humanity that it seems infinitely larger, like a chart depicting the sexual and emotional anatomy of us all.” “…a keenly satisfying comedy of sexual matters and manners…,” said Jeremy Gerard of Deadline. “[Doran] is a voice worth paying lots of attention to.”

Bathsheba Doran’s first play “Feminine Wash,” was produced at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe while she was a student at Cambridge University, from which she holds a B.A. and an M.A. She then went on to Oxford University, where she received an M.A. before working as a television comedy writer with the BBC. Doran moved to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2000, received her MFA from Columbia University and became a playwriting fellow of The Juilliard School. Her critically acclaimed play “Kin” received its world premiere in 2011 at Playwrights Horizons. Her television work includes the series “Codes of Conduct” (HBO), “Jerusalem” (Channel 4), “Masters of Sex,” “Smash” and “Boardwalk Empire” (for which her episode received a WGA nomination). She is a 2009 recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, three Lecomte du Nouy Lincoln Center playwriting awards and she is a Susan Smith Blackburn Award finalist.

Tickets for “The Mystery of Love & Sex” are available by calling (213) 628-2772 or online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org. Tickets range from $25 - $85 (ticket prices are subject to change). The Mark Taper Forum is located at the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. 90012.

# # #

January 14, 2016