(POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.) – Kyra Sedgwick will lead the cast of Academy Award- and Tony Award-winner John Patrick Shanley’s new play, “The Danish Widow,” which will premiere July 16-27, 2014, at Hallie Flanagan-Davis Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College. Shanley also directs the cast, which includes multitalented Broadway vets Craig Bierko and Matt McGrath, as well as stage and screen actress Annika Boras.

In “The Danish Widow,” a mystery unfolds against an international backdrop as a female insurance investigator finds herself battling wits with the formidable title character.  John Patrick Shanley — the Tony, Pulitzer and Oscar-winning author of “Doubt,” “Moonstruck,” and last season’s “Outside Mullingar” — returns to the Powerhouse with his newest play, which he describes as “disturbing, funny, deadly serious, sexy – like a Hitchcock film with a modernist edge.”

Kyra Sedgwick (Joyce) has been seen on Broadway in: Twelfth Night at Lincoln Theatre directed by Nicholas Hytner; Ah, Wilderness! directed by Jose Quintero. Off-Broadway: Craig Lucas’ Stranger, David Mamet’s Oleanna. Film: Born on the Fourth of July, Singles, Something to Talk About, Phenomenon, Personal Velocity, Second Hand Lions, The Woodsman, The Possession. She will next be seen in Oren Moverman’s Time Out of Mind opposite Richard Gere. TV: “Miss Rose White,” “Door to Door,” and most notably “The Closer,” for which she won a Golden Globe and Emmy.

Craig Bierko (Kirby) has appeared on Broadway in: Guys and Dolls, Thou Shalt Not, Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man (Theater World Award; Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations). Off-Broadway: Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, Modern Orthodox.  Television: “The Michael J. Fox Show,” “Body of Proof,” “Elementary,” “Leap Year,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “Necessary Roughness,” “Damages,” “The Good Wife,” “Unhitched,” “Boston Legal,” “Nip/Tuck,” “Sex and the City.” Film: If I Had Wings, Louder Than Words, The Three Stooges, The Change-Up, Company (filmed live for PBS), For Your Consideration, Danika, Cinderella Man, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Larry David’s Sour

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Matt McGrath (Edvard) has appeared on Broadway in: Cabaret, A Streetcar Named Desire. Off Broadway: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, A Fair Country. Regional: The Legend of Georgia McBride, His Girl Friday, The Normal Heart, The Black Rider, Distant Fires. TV/Film: “L&O: CI,” “It’s Only Rock & Roll,” “Frasier,”“Member of the Wedding,” “Cruel Doubt.” Film: Ex-Girlfriends, Full Grown Men, Boys Don’t Cry, The Notorious Bettie Page, The Anniversary Party, The Broken Hearts Club. Awards: Helpmann Award, Drama Desk and Emmy nominations, LA Weekly Award; Henry Award Nomination Colorado Critics Circle, Recipient of the Bienecke Fellowship from the Yale School of Drama; Honorary Masters from American Conservatory Theatre.

Annika Boras (Aline) has been seen Off-Broadway in: Chair by Edward Bond (Lucille Lortel nomination); The Broken Heart and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth – TFANA. Electra in An Oresteia (Drama League nomination); Orlando by Sarah Ruhl – CSC. Ernest in Love – Irish Rep. Regional: The Importance of Being Earnest, The Miracle Worker – Papermill Playhouse; Romeo and Juliet – ART. London: Carver (dir. William Gaskill) – Arcola. Television: Recurring roles on: “The Following,” “Unforgettable,” “Royal Pains” & “Lights Out.” “The Good Wife,” “Blue Bloods,” “Homeland” and “Person of Interest.” Training: The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Celebrating 30 years this summer, Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film.  The Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residency on the Vassar campus during which more than 250 professional artists and 50 apprentices in the Powerhouse training program live and work together to create new theater works.

Recent highlights at Powerhouse include The Hamilton Mixtape, the latest work from In the Heights Tony® Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda; Bright Star, an original musical from Steve Martin and Edie Brickell; and The Fortress of Solitude, a musical adaptation of the best-selling novel by Jonathan Lethem.  Many shows from past seasons have found their way to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and theaters nationwide, including Stephen Karam’s Sons of the Prophet (Roundabout Theater); Seminar by Theresa Rebeck (Golden Theater); Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash’s Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theater Club); Pulitzer finalist Nathan Englander’s The Twenty-Seventh Man (The Public Theater); and Storefront Church, John Patrick Shanley’s final installment of his “Church and State” trilogy that began with Doubt (Atlantic Theater Company).  Other projects developed at the Powerhouse include the Tony Award-winning Side Man and Tru; the multi-award-winning Doubt; the groundbreaking Broadway musical American Idiot, and A Steady Rain, produced on Broadway in 2009 with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.