Monthly Archives: January 2017

DANIELLA TOPOL HEADS TO WASHINGTON’S ARENA STAGE TO DIRECT WORLD PREMIERE OF JACQUELINE E. LAWTON’S ‘INTELLIGENCE’ · Jan 31st

NEW YORK – Daniella Topol, the new artistic director of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, heads down to Washington, D.C. to direct the world premiere of Jacqueline E. Lawton’s new political thriller Intelligence set for Arena Stage, February 24 through April 9.

Intelligence is a fictionalized account of a covert operative who, tasked with protecting the national security of the United States post-9/11, is racing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. With her country at war, her cover is blown and the lives of her assets are put in jeopardy. Inspired by true events, Intelligence follows one woman’s journey to serve her country, protect her family and fight for the truth and justice.

The production features Tony Award nominee Hannah Yelland (Broadway’s Brief Encounter) as Valerie Plame and Lawrence Redmond (Arena Stage’s All the Way) as her husband Joseph Wilson.

Ms. Topol was appointed Artistic Director of Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre last May.

Ms. Topol’s recent world premiere directing credits include Martyna Majok’s Ironbound (Rattlestick/Women’s Project, Steppenwolf, RoundHouse), Cori Thomas’ When January Feels Like Summer (Ensemble Studio/P73/WP), Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home (Rattlestick), Catherine Treischmann’s How the World Began (South Coast Repertory, Women’s Project), Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India (Magic Theatre, Ma-Yi Theater), Rachel Bonds’ Five Mile Lake (South Coast Rep), Rajiv Joseph’s Monster at the Door (Alley Theatre).

The creative team for Intelligence includes set designer Misha Kachman, costume designer Ivania Stack, lighting designer Kathy A. Perkins, original music and sound design by Jane Shaw, and projection designer Jared Mezzocchi.

Ms.Topol’s current production at Rattlestick, co-produced with Page 73. is Basil Kreimendahl’s memory play, Orange Julius, directed by Dustin Wills. It runs through February 12.

(Via Bruce Cohen; Photo: The Interval.)

‘NEW YORKER’ THEATRE LISTINGS, 2/6 PLAYDECK · Jan 31st

PREVIEW AND OPENINGS

In previews. Opens Feb. 16.

Evening at the Talk House

The New Group stages Wallace Shawn’s play, in which a playwright and a group of actors reunite ten years after a flop. The cast features Shawn, Matthew Broderick, John…

Pershing Square Signature Center

Midtown

In previews. Opens Feb. 21.

Everybody

In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s latest work, a modern spin on the fifteenth-century morality play “Everyman,” the actor playing the main character is assigned by lottery each night. Lila Neugebauer…

Pershing Square Signature Center

Midtown

Opens Feb. 8.

Fade

Primary Stages presents Tanya Saracho’s play, directed by Jerry Ruiz, about a Mexican writer at a Hollywood studio who befriends her office’s Latino janitor.

Cherry Lane

Downtown

In previews.

The Glass Menagerie

Sally Field plays the redoubtable Southern matriarch Amanda Wingfield in Sam Gold’s revival of the Tennessee Williams drama, opposite Joe Mantello as Tom.

Belasco

Midtown

In previews. Opens Jan. 22.

The Great American Drama

The New York Neo-Futurists present a new experimental show, created by Connor Sampson, in which the audience members are surveyed about what they want to see, and the cast members…

A.R.T./New York Theatres

Midtown

Previews begin Feb. 2.

If I Forget

The Roundabout stages Steven Levenson’s play, directed by Daniel Sullivan, in which a professor of Jewish studies clashes with his sisters on their father’s birthday. With…

Laura Pels

Midtown

In previews.

Kid Victory

Liesl Tommy directs a new musical by John Kander and Greg Pierce, in which a teen-ager returns to his Kansas town after a mysterious yearlong absence.

Vineyard

Downtown

Previews begin Feb. 7.

Linda

In Penelope Skinner’s play, directed by Lynne Meadow for Manhattan Theatre Club, a senior executive pitches a radical idea to change how women her age are viewed.

City Center Stage I

Midtown

In previews. Opens Feb. 15.

Man from Nebraska

David Cromer directs a 2003 play by Tracy Letts (“August: Osage County”), about a Midwestern man (Reed Birney) who sets off on a quest to restore his sense…

Second Stage

Midtown

In previews. Opens Feb. 9.

The Object Lesson

Geoff Sobelle created this installation theatre piece, which transforms the space into a cluttered storage facility where audience members can roam and explore. David Neumann directs.

New York Theatre Workshop

Downtown

In previews.

Ring Twice for Miranda

In Alan Hruska’s dark comic fable, directed by Rick Lombardo, a chambermaid serving an all-powerful master flees with a butler into the rough outside world.

City Center Stage II

Midtown

In previews. Opens Feb. 9.

Sunset Boulevard

Glenn Close returns to the role of Norma Desmond in the 1993 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, based on Billy Wilder’s classic portrait of Hollywood desuetude. Lonny Price directs.…

Palace

Midtown

Opens Feb. 4.

The Town Hall Affair

The Wooster Group revisits a 1971 debate over feminism which erupted among Germaine Greer, Norman Mailer, and other thinkers at New York’s Town Hall. Elizabeth LeCompte directs a…

The Performing Garage

Downtown

Previews begin Feb. 7.

Wakey, Wakey

Michael Emerson (“Lost”) and January LaVoy star in the latest existential comedy by Will Eno (“The Realistic Joneses”), directed by the playwright.

Pershing Square Signature Center

Midtown

In previews. Opens Jan. 31.

Yen

Lucas Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”) stars in Anna Jordan’s play, directed by Trip Cullman for MCC, in which two under-parented kids meet a neighbor who…

Lucille Lortel

MARIINSKY AND MALY DRAMA THEATERS TO PERFORM IN WASHINGTON, D.C. · Jan 30th

(from Russia Beyond the Headlines, 1/30.)

Russia’s two theater companies from St. Petersburg are beginning a series of performances in Washington, DC. While the local audience is familiar with the former, the latter will visit the United States” capital city for the first time.

The world-famous Mariinsky Theater will begin its traditional winter performances in Washington later this week coming there for the 15th time, and the Maly Drama Theater will travel there for the first time in spring.

Performing on main stage

Russians will be performing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Meg Booth, the center’s Director of Dance Programming, told TASS that “the Kennedy Center is fortunate to present and enjoy the artistry of the Mariinsky each year.” We are fortunate to be one of the few theaters in the world outside their home that has an annual visit from the legendary company,” she said.

‘ZOOT SUIT,’ A PIONEERING CHICANO PLAY, COMES FULL CIRCLE · Jan 30th

(Robert Ito’s article appeared in The New York Times, 12/6; via Pam Green.)

LOS ANGELES — When “Zoot Suit” first opened at the Mark Taper Forum in 1978, little about the production screamed hit. Much of the cast had scant acting experience. The story itself was a Brechtian take on a relatively obscure unsolved murder in 1942 Los Angeles; its climax involved a humiliating assault on a Latino man by racist United States servicemen. Just a decade earlier, its writer and director, Luis Valdez, was creating short skits for audiences of striking farmworkers in the fields of the Central Valley in California.

But audiences kept coming, and coming, selling out show after packed show. Fans came one week and returned with their families the next; Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead is said to have seen the play 22 times. After running for 11 months to sold-out audiences, first at the Taper and then at the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood, “Zoot Suit” moved to New York’s Winter Garden in 1979, where it became the first Chicano theatrical production on Broadway. Mr. Valdez then directed a feature-film version, which was released in 1982. “We had no idea any of this would happen, man,” he said. “It was like this huge explosion.”

WHY DAVID HARE IS WRONG ABOUT THE STATE OF BRITISH THEATRE · Jan 30th

(Lyn Gardner’s article appeared in the Guardian, 1/30.)

With a hard Brexit on the horizon, the arts world is working hard to strengthen its ties with Europe. Over recent years the two-way traffic between the UK and Europe has benefited all involved, not just through the sharing of different aesthetics and ways of working but through the joint exploration of questions about what theatre can be. The results have been invigorating.

But at a time when we need to look outwards not inwards, David Hare apparently thinks we need to keep those pesky European directors out and stop them from influencing British theatre culture. A news story in the Observer quoted from an interview in which the playwright claims: “we’re heading in Britain towards an over-aestheticised European theatre. We’ve got all these people called ‘theatre-makers’ – God help us, what a word! – coming in and doing director’s theatre, where you camp up classic plays and you cut them and prune them around.”

He continues: “all that directorial stuff that we’ve managed to keep over there on the continent is now coming over and beginning to infect our theatre. And of course if that’s what people want, fine. But I’ll feel less warmth towards the British theatre if that ‘state of the nation’ tradition goes.”

(Photo: Federation of Children’s Book Groups.)

THE NOVEL OF THE CENTURY: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF LES MISERABLES (listen now on BBC Radio 4—Link Below) · Jan 29th

Listen at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08b7rv2

David Bellos explores why Les Miserables is “France’s greatest gift”. He reveals its inspirations and its resonance now, while describing Victor Hugo’s life as he penned his epic.

There has never been a book like it. War and Peace, Great Expectations, Crime and Punishment were all published in the same decade, yet only Les Misérables can stand as the novel of the nineteenth century. How did Victor Hugo’s epic work come to be the most widely read and frequently adapted story of all time? And why is its message just as important for our century as it was for his own?

Photo: The Times.

DAVID HARE: CLASSIC BRITISH DRAMA IS ‘BEING INFECTED’ BY RADICAL EUROPEAN STAGING · Jan 29th

(Dalya Alberge’s article appeared in the Observer, 1/28.)

One of Britain’s foremost playwrights has launched a forthright attack on European concept directors who camp up and distort classic plays in a way that is “beginning to infect” British theatre.

Sir David Hare’s damning criticisms of so-called “theatre makers” are included in a wide-ranging interview for a forthcoming book.

In one passage, Hare refers to “state of England” plays as “the strongest line in British theatre”. He recalls Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth’s award-winning playabout national identity, which opened at the Royal Court in 2009 with Mark Rylance as a roguish ne’er-do-well. Hare describes it as “the last surpassingly successful play in that tradition”.

Photo: The Telegraph.

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA SURPRISES BROADWAYCON AND ANSWERS 7 BURNING QUESTIONS · Jan 29th

(Michael Gioia’s article appeared in Playbill Online, 1/28; via Pam Green.)

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the megahit musical Hamilton, couldn’t make this year’s festivities at BroadwayCon because he is in London filming the upcoming Mary Poppins Returns film, in which he stars. So, we brought the Con to him—via FaceTime. In a surprise panel hosted by Miranda’s brother-in-law, Luis Crespo, the original Alexander Hamilton caught up with theatre fans at BroadwayCon, answering questions about what he’s up to and what advice he has for aspiring artists.

Do you have any advice for people pursuing theatre in college?
Lin-Manuel Miranda: The answer is this: Study all the things that you don’t want to go into in theatre. Study lighting. Do all the things. For my theatre major, I did makeup, I ran lights, I did sound design, I sewed costumes, and that stuff comes in incredibly handy when you work with other people. Theatre is all about collaboration, so you have to actually understand a bit of the job your collaborators are doing, so that you can speak to them fluently. And then the other thing is take, like, whatever you’re interested in—I promise it will come in handy. Tommy Kail was an American History major; it came in pretty handy when we had this idea. So that’s my advice. Do what you’re passionate about.

Photo: Hollywood Reporter.

JOHN HURT, REST IN PEACE (1940- 2017) · Jan 28th

(Carmel Dagan’s article appeared in Variety, 1/27; via Pam Green.)

John Hurt, the wiry English actor who played a drug addict in “Midnight Express,” Kane in “Alien,” the title character in “The Elephant Man,” and Winston Smith in “1984” has died. He was 77.

He died on Wednesday at home in Norfolk, his widow, Anwen, confirmed in a statement to Variety. Hurt had disclosed in 2015 that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Anwen wrote as a tribute, “John was the most sublime of actors and the most gentlemanly of gentlemen with the greatest of hearts and the most generosity of spirit. He touched all our lives with joy and magic and it will be a strange world without him.”

Mel Brooks, executive producer of “The Elephant Man,” tweeted that he was a “truly magnificent talent.”

PEARL THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF VANITY FAIR, BY KATE HAMILL, ADAPTED FROM THE NOVEL BY WILLIAM THACKERAY, MARCH 24 – APRIL 25 · Jan 27th

The Pearl Theatre Company presents
Vanity Fair
By Kate Hamill

Adapted from William Thackeray’s novel

Directed by Eric Tucker

Previews: March 24, 25, 31 and April 1 at 8pm; March 26, 28, 30 at 7pm; March 29, April 1, 2 at 2pm
Opening Night: Sunday, April 2 at 7pm
Regular: April 4, 5, 6, 9, 23, 25 at 7pm; April 8, 14, 15, 22 at 8pm; April 9, 15, 16, 22, 23 at 2pm
The Pearl Theatre (555 West 42nd Street)
$59 Regular, $69 Premium ($49 previews, $40 members, $20 rush tickets)
pearltheatre.org; 212.563.9261

2 hours and 15 minutes with one intermission

The Pearl Theatre Company is pleased to present the world premiere of Vanity Fair by Kate Hamill, best known for her critically-acclaimed, off-Broadway hit Sense & Sensibility. Adapted from the English satire penned by William Thackeray, Vanity Fair will be directed by Eric Tucker, Artistic Director of Bedlam and the Wall Street Journal’s 2014 pick for Director of the Year. The production will run from March 24–April 25 and features Hamill leading a seven-member ensemble in the central role of Becky Sharp.

Vanity Fair is set in a society that cares more for good birth and good manners than for skill. The play’s protagonist Becky Sharp—poor, plain, and devilishly clever—is determined to defy the odds through risky romantic entanglements, shady business practices, and social climbing at any cost. She won’t stop until the world lies at her feet. Vanity Fair was featured in The Pearl’s 2016 Modern/Classics Reading Series.
“I’m committed to reclaiming the classics for all genders,” shared playwright Hamill. “In adapting Thackeray’s novel, I wanted to write a play that provided a glimpse into a deep female friendship between two different female archetypes and the parallel paths they travel to overcome the limitations posed upon them. I also wanted the play to serve as a reminder not to judge others too harshly, because the truth is we’re all so fallible.”

The Pearl’s Artistic Director Hal Brooks said, “Hamill’s incredibly engaging adaptation tells an audacious story which skewers society, and meditates on the ups and downs of fortune. In keeping with The Pearl’s mission—to explore, expand and enrich the theatrical canon—Vanity Fair perfectly matches Hamill’s funny, physical and raw talent with Tucker’s ability to create in the moment: he merges the actor’s instinct with the text to create a combustible force. This production, with its innate theatricality, will be a fun, moving and dynamic take on one of the great novels of all time, an ideal choice for The Pearl’s audience.”

Joining Hamill, the ensemble of Vanity Fair includes The Pearl’s Resident Acting Company members Joey Parsons and Brad Heberlee with guest artists Zack Fine, Tom O’Keefe, Ryan Quinn, and Debargo Sanyal.

The creative team includes Sandra Goldmark (Set), Valérie Thérèse Bart (Costumes), Seth Reiser (Lights), and Katherine Whitney (Production Stage Manager).

Performances of Vanity Fair will take place at The Pearl Theatre, which is located at 555 West 42 Street. Critics are welcome as of Thursday, March 30 for an official opening on Sunday, April 2 at 7pm. Tickets are $59 regular, $69 premium ($49 previews, $40 members, $20 student rush, $20 Thursday rush) and can be purchased by visiting pearltheatre.org or calling 212.563.9261.

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Monthly Archives: January 2017

DANIELLA TOPOL HEADS TO WASHINGTON’S ARENA STAGE TO DIRECT WORLD PREMIERE OF JACQUELINE E. LAWTON’S ‘INTELLIGENCE’ · Jan 31st

‘NEW YORKER’ THEATRE LISTINGS, 2/6 PLAYDECK · Jan 31st

MARIINSKY AND MALY DRAMA THEATERS TO PERFORM IN WASHINGTON, D.C. · Jan 30th

Performing on main stage

‘ZOOT SUIT,’ A PIONEERING CHICANO PLAY, COMES FULL CIRCLE · Jan 30th

WHY DAVID HARE IS WRONG ABOUT THE STATE OF BRITISH THEATRE · Jan 30th

THE NOVEL OF THE CENTURY: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF LES MISERABLES (listen now on BBC Radio 4—Link Below) · Jan 29th

DAVID HARE: CLASSIC BRITISH DRAMA IS ‘BEING INFECTED’ BY RADICAL EUROPEAN STAGING · Jan 29th

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA SURPRISES BROADWAYCON AND ANSWERS 7 BURNING QUESTIONS · Jan 29th

JOHN HURT, REST IN PEACE (1940- 2017) · Jan 28th

PEARL THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF VANITY FAIR, BY KATE HAMILL, ADAPTED FROM THE NOVEL BY WILLIAM THACKERAY, MARCH 24 – APRIL 25 · Jan 27th