World Premiere of Kin, Bathsheba Doran's Meditation on Relationships, Opens in NYC

Bathsheba Doran's Kin, a drama with humor about the extended families of a would-be couple — an American scholar and an Irish personal trainer — opens in a world-premiere engagement at Off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons March 21. Kristen Bush and Patch Darragh are featured as the couple in question.

Obie Award winner Sam Gold, who directed PH's hit run of Circle Mirror Transformation in 2009-10, stages the new play on the company's Mainstage. Previews began Feb. 25.

According to Playwrights Horizons: "Anna (Kristen Bush), an Ivy League poetry scholar, and Sean (Patch Darragh), an Irish personal trainer, hardly seem destined for one another. But as their web of disparate family and friends crosses great distances — both psychologically and geographically — an unlikely new family is forged. Bathsheba Doran's play sheds a sharp light on the changing face of kinship in the expansive landscape of the modern world.

The cast includes Tony Award nominee Suzanne Bertish (Nicholas Nickleby), Bill Buell ("John Adams"), Kristen Bush (A Touch of the Poet), Patch Darragh (The Glass Menagerie), Laura Heisler (Coram Boy), Matthew Rauch (The Merchant of Venice), Cotter Smith (Next Fall), Kit Flanagan (Broadway's All My Sons in 1987) and Molly Ward (Three Sisters).

Kin has scenic design by Paul Steinberg, costume design by David Zinn, lighting design by Jane Cox and sound design by Matt Tierney. The white framework of the set is manipulated by the actors to form shifting playing areas, covering many years in the growth of the characters.

Doran's plays include Parents' Evening (Flea Theater); Living Room in Africa (Off-Broadway for Edge Theater); Nest (commissioned and produced by Signature Theater in Arlington, VA); Until Morning (BBC Radio 4); adaptations of The Blind, Peer Gynt and Great Expectations; and her play for young audiences, Ben and The Magic Paintbrush (South Coast Rep). She is a recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and three Lecomte du Nouy Lincoln Center playwriting awards. She was a Cherry Lane Mentor Project Fellow and a Susan Blackburn Award finalist. Her work has been developed by MTC, the O'Neill Theatre Center, Lincoln Center, Sundance Theater Lab and Playwrights Horizons. Doran studied at Cambridge and Oxford universities before working as a television comedy writer with the BBC. She moved to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2000, and received her MFA from Columbia University and went on to become a playwriting fellow of The Juilliard School. She is currently under commission from Atlantic Theater and Playwrights Horizons and Schtanhaus in London.