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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    Press Contact: 212-348-8520

Press Night: June 9, 2006

JUNE STEIN TO DIRECT U.S PREMIERE OF

AWARD WINNING PLAY
New York, NY
Nicu’s Spoon produces the U.S. premiere of “Cherish”, by Ken Duncam, which won “Best New New Zealand Play” at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards in 2003.  “Cherish” will be directed by June Stein who has directed world premieres of plays by John Patrick Shanley, Lanford Wilson, John Bishop, Ned Eisenberg, and Wendy Hammond, and is on the faculty of Columbia Film School.

“Cherish” follows the dramatic reverberations of a surrogacy dispute between a gay couple and a lesbian couple, whose parental instincts threaten to tear them apart.  Jess (Jessica Lions*) and Tom (Alvaro Seno) are best friends who have a “plan” to help each other and their partners have children.  But while Jess is pregnant with the first baby for Tom and William (Jeffrey Danneman*), she realizes that giving up her child will be harder than expected. Jess and Maeve (Rebecca Challis*) struggle to hold their relationship and their children together under the pressures of the dispute, while Tom and William deal with the loss of their dream of parenthood.

Duncam’s play deals with not only the issue of gay parenthood and untraditional families, but with the universal struggle to be true to ourselves while doing what is best for our families.  In “Cherish” the characters face a truth that echoes in all of our lives: “The things you can’t have — they define you, shape you. They belong to you.  They’re not an outrage to natural justice.  They are nature.  They’re something to be cherished.”

Starring Jessica Lions* (Broadway – Joseph… Dreamcoat, Raffi on Broadway), Jeffrey Danneman* (Broadway – “Me Jack, You Jill”), Rebecca Challis*, and Alvaro Sena.
June 7 -  June 25, Wednesday-Sunday @ 8pm a

The Abingdon Theater, 312 West 36th Street (b/w 8th and 9th Avenues), New York, NY For tickets visit www.smarttix.com or 212-868-4444

*appears courtesy of Actors Equity Association
Nicu’s Spoon began its journey in 2001 with an off-Broadway production of our original play Displaced, which was sponsored for submission for the Pulitzer Prize.  Our credits now include critically productions of: To Kill a Mockingbird, In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe, George Orwell’s 1984, A Murder of Crows; Suburbia (OOBR award 2004), Ordinary People, The Swan, Stumps, and Skin Tight.  We recently won the Thom Fluellen Award from the NYU Community Fund for excellence in programming and service delivery in NYC (2006).