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Prequels to Upcoming Theater Events and Sequels to Reviews & Features
by Elyse Sommer
Short Term Events |
Shakespeare plays are bustin' out all over Manhattan stages this Fall. New York audiences will have a chance to see Jude Law tackle the killer role of Hamlet, when it transfers from its sold-out London run (Our Review) to the Broadhurst. The Theatre For a New Audience didn't get its much praised Othello (Our Review transferred to a Broadway house despite an extra run, it will reprise the production, as well as its Hamlet (review). The Moor and his treacherous friend, portrayed by John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman, will make a limited run appearance at the Public Theater. As American actors are finally shedding their reputation as not being able to deliver the Bard's language like the Brits, could American audiences also make the Bard a sell-out? 13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.) production of Lucy Thurber's (P#8) 3 1/2 hour, 21-cast member Monstrosity, will bedirected by Lear deBessonet and performed at The Connelly Theatre, 220 East 4th Street (between Avenues A and B), from July 9 through 19, 2009 for a total of twelve performances. Described as a dark, epic tale of singing teenage fascists, magic, war, and love, this production will mark 13P's most ambitious venture to date. It's not open for review but at just $18 a ticket (212-982-3995) why not just hop down to this lovely little East Village venue and check it out for yourself.
The 6th Annual Summer Play Festival (SPF) to be held at the Public Theater from July 9th to August 2nd will include seven new plays and a new musical. At $10, each equals live theater for the price of a movie. For an annotated list of the plays, look under Summer Play Festival in our Off-Broadway Listings and also check the festifal website www.spfnyc.comThe Atlantic Theater's lineup for the next season is as follows:
Keep Your Pantheon and School by David Mamet, directed by Neil Pepe, Sept. 9-Nov. 1 at the Linda Gross Theater. A farce that follows the fortunes and misfortunes of an acting troupe in ancient Rome.
Ages of the Moon by Sam Shepard, directed by Jimmy Fay, Jan. 9-March 7, 2010, at the Linda Gross Theater. Dark comedy about Byron and Ames who are old friends re-united by mutual desperation.
Oohrah! a world premiere by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Evan Cabnet, Sept. 1-27 at Atlantic Stage 2. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to one of the South's largest military bases, practically everybody has somebody 'Over There.' Sara is relieved when her husband Ron returns home from an uneventful tour in Iraq, but he's finding it difficult to settle back into the domestic bliss that is 'home improvement' and 'Rachel Ray's 30-minute meals.' Sara's sister Abby has set herself up for an uneventful life with a civilian fiancé who's more interested in PlayStation than the battlefield. Then a hot, mysterious Marine walks into their lives.
The 6TH annual EAST TO EDINBURGH festival, this year runs 7/14/09 to 8/02/09. (for schedule details see www.59e59.org) This year's shows include: July 18 – July 26 LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S JONATHAN PRAGER! Written and performed by Jonathan Prager. New York Times featured comedian Jonathan Prager's insight into families, relationships, politics and life’s incongruities is both touching and hilarious.
July 19 – July 22 BROWN AMBITION Written and performed by Carolyn Castiglia. Directed by Baron Vaughn. A mix of stand-up, characters and hip-hop, BROWN AMBITION chronicles the life of Carolyn Castiglia (Miss CKC from MTV, VH1) as she moves from her small town in Upstate NY to the streets of Harlem and back again. A black comedy about a white girl you won't soon forget.
July 23- July 26 ETTY Written and performed by Susan Stein. Directed by Austin Pendleton. Etty Hillesum, seen by many as an adult counterpart to Anne Frank, asks us not to leave her at Auschwitz, but to let her have a say in what she hopes will be a new world.
July 23 – August 1 LADYBUG WARRIOR Written and performed by Vicki Ferentinos. Vicki Ferentinos takes audiences on a journey to find her inner superhero.
July 28 – August 2 THE MONTANA RANCH Written by Dylan Dougherty. Saving the planet has never been so wrong. Two eco-scam artists turn Obama's Green idealism into a money machine. But a darkly comical change of heart could ruin everything. Greed, betrayal and a dead tortoise.
July 29 – August 2 A LONGHARDT LOOK AT LOVE WITH CHAD LONGHARDT Before “Flavor Flav” or “Rock of Love,” there was Chad Longhardt: the first Rock-Superstar to seek love on a televised dating-love- competition-show… and there’s a reason this show never aired.
July 31 – August 1 COUPLES COUNSELING By Carey Lovelace. Directed by Judith Stevens-Ly. With Kyle Fabel, James Kennedy and Anna Margaret Hollyman. Boy loves girl, boy gets therapist, therapist gets girl…and then? This quirky comedy explores psychotherapy, New York-style. A fast- paced, language-driven journey into relationships, love triangles and Freud.
MCC Theater's 2009-2010 season at Off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel Theatre will include the following (mcctheater.org): 9/16/09 to 11/01/09, the world premiere of Still Life directed by Will Frears about photographer Carrie Ann who inexplicably shuts down at the pinnacle of her career, too lost, and afraid to even pick up a camera. 1/27/10 to 3/14/10. Joe Mantello ) will direct the American premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride, snpiy Oliver, Philip, and Sylvia [who] are caught in a kind of erotic time warp.
4/07/10 to 5/23/10 Beth Henley's Family Week helmed by Jonathan Demme about a woman whochecks into a recovery center in the desert, searching for a way to cope with her son's death. When her mother, daughter and sister arrive to participate in 'family week,' long-dormant traumas collide with recent tragedies. For more information visit .
13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc), will present Lucy Thurber’s (P#8) Monstrosity, directed by Lear deBessonet with a cast of 21, d at The Connelly Theatre, 220 East 4th Street (between Avenues A and B), from July 9 through 19, 2009 for a total of twelve performances. (Evening performances will all be at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 9; Friday, July 10; Saturday, July 11; Sunday, Ju ly 12; Tuesday, July 14; Wednesday, July 15; Thursday, July 16; Friday, July 17; and Saturday, July 18. There will be three matinee performances at 1:00 p.m. on: Saturdays, July 11 and 18 and Sunday, July 19. Running time is 3½ hours. Tickets are available through www.monstrositytheplay.com or 866-811-4111. The play is a dark, epic about singing teenage fascists, magic, war, and love. This ambitious limited production will not be open for review.
The York Theater Company will launch its Fall 2009 season on September 8th with Blind Lemon Blues, based upon more than 60 Blind Lemon Jefferson songs In February 2010, the York will present the new musical Yank!. Performances are, as usual at The Theatre at Saint Peter's (54th Street just east of Lexington Avenue). For more information, visit www.yorktheatre.org or call 212/935-5820.
Blind Lemon Blues, created by Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde, with musical arrangements by Babatunde, Cavin Yarbrough and Alisa Peoples Yarbrough and direction and choreography Mr. Babatunde is a reprise of a special 10-day run in 2007. Yank!, which is set in the U.S. Army at the time of World War II, has music by Joseph Zellnik with book and lyrics by David Zellnik. It premiered at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2005 where it won an audience award for Best Musical. I
June 5 – June 28- #9, devised by Waterwell, directed by Tom Ridgely
From Waterwell (New York, NY)
With a new Williamstown Theatre Festival season lined up, I'm happy to note that one of last summer's standouts, Broke-ology , will be produced by Lincoln Center Theater next Fall, again directedThomas Kail. Hurrah!. The other new play which will precede it is Sarah Ruhl's
In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play directed by Les Waters will open at a TBA Shubert theater, with previews scheduled to begin 10/22/09 and the opening set for 11/19/09.
Playwrights Horizons has announced 4 of the 6 shows that will make up its 2009-10 season. All are world premieres. Among the 2 other shows, one of them is promised to be a new musical: 1. THE RETRIBUTIONISTS a new play by Daniel Goldfarb will be the first production of the season. 2. CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION by Annie Baker). 3. THIS by Obie Award winner Melissa James Gibsondirected by Obie Award winner Daniel Aukin. 4. CLYBOURNE PARK a new play by Bruce Norris , directed by Pam Mackinnon.
The new musical and a sixth and final production, as well as all casting information and dates for all six shows TBA. While we didn't re-review Enter Laughing now that it's back at the York for a second 8-week run, readers who went back to see this fun show again have sent numerous emails assuring us that, good as George S. Irving was as Marlowe, Bob Dishy is a worthy replacement. ditto for the one other actor on board: Marla Shaffel who now plays Angela.
Primary Stages forthcoming season at 59E59 Theaters will feature new works by three female playwrights: Cusi Cram's A Lifetime Burning (July 28-Sept. 5), a comedy that centers on "trust fund darling Emma [who] imagines what her life would have been like had she come from a less privileged background,"" reads the announcement. . . Charlayne Woodard's Night Watcher (Sept. 22-Oct. 31), an auto-biographical one-woman play by the actress-playwright. . . Lucinda Coxon's Happy Now? (Jan. 26-March 6, 2010), a dark comedy about a chance encounter at a hotel that plays upon Kitty's mind as she struggles to balance personal freedom with family life, fidelity and a demanding job. The Roundabout's Fall-into Winter season will bring the following shows to Broadway:AFTER MISS JULIE by Patrick Marber directed by Mark Brokaw and starring Sienna Miller making her Broadway debut. The play transposes August Strindberg's 1888 play about sex and class to an English country house on the eve of Labour's historic landslide in 1945.
A new production of BYE BYE BIRDIE, Book by Michael Stewart, Lyrics by Lee Adams, Music by Charles Strouse. Directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom. The musical comedy takes place in 1960 and centers around an Elvis Presley-type rock 'n' roll superstar named Conrad Birdie. Conrad's Agent Albert and his long suffering secretary/love interest Rosie plan a publicity stunt in which a lucky teenager gets to bestow a farewell kiss upon their idol. It features songs such as "Put on A Happy Face."
PRESENT LAUGHTER by Noël Coward, another new production which will be directed by Nicholas Martin and will star Victor Garber as matinee idol Garry Essendine.
Besides all the shows that closed this past week and the week before, it was a surprise curtains for the funky Zipper Factory which shut down without prior notice on January 13th.
Cate Blanchett, the Academy Award Winning, film star who, with her husband, Andrew Upton, is running the Sydney Theatre Company, will be starring in the company's production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. The high profile production will play at the company's home base from September 1 to October 10, 2009. From there the Streetcar will ride to D.C's Kennedy Center (October 29-November 21) and then to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (November 27-December 20). The production will be directed by another famous film star, Liv Ullman. Blanchett, best known for films like The Aviator and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and I'm not there, is no newcomer to the stage, having appeared in works like Hedda Gabler and Plenty. Her work at the Sydney Theatre Company also includes directing (currently The Year of Magical Thinking). Second Stage Theater Company expands into a Triple Stage company. The nonprofit Off Broadway company currently operating out of a 299-seat space in a west 43rd Street building formerly houseing a bank and the McGinn Cazalle venue in Zabar country, has acquired the right to purchase 5970-seat Helen Hayes Theater on West 44th Street. Once the $35 million needed dollars are raised and the 44th street theater is renovated, you can expect a new name on the marquee. When the company's third venue opens (some time in 2010) it will be the fourth nonprofit with a Broadway presence (Roundabout Theater Company /American Airlines Theater, the Manhattan Theater Club/the Biltmore) and Lincoln Center Theater (the Vivian Beaumont). The landmarked Helen Hayes is the smallest house on Broadway but will give Second Stage a larger and broader canvas for new and experimental dramas that would be too risky to try out in Broadway's much larger other venues. Actually, the Helen Hayes had only 300 seats in its original location on 46th Street when it was known as The Little Theater, and was named after the legendary acress in 1983 when it made way for the Marriott Marquis Hotel and relocated to 44th Street. This is an expensive risky enterprise for Second Stage but given their past successes, which included successful Broadway transfers for shows like The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Metamorphoses, this company has a better chance than most to succeed with this risky new venture in an always risky business.|
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