Albee Plays Will Not Be Performed March 11-12 at Cherry Lane | Playbill

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News Albee Plays Will Not Be Performed March 11-12 at Cherry Lane The 21st-century return of two seminal Edward Albee plays to The Cherry Lane Theatre — the house where they premiered more than 40 years ago — has been delayed.
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Edward Albee Photo by Carol Rosegg

Performances of the Albee-directed revivals of The American Dream and The Sandbox were to have begun March 11 at the Greenwich Village venue, but Playbill.com has learned that the show will not go on March 11-12 due to multiple illnesses within the company.

It was not known March 11 when the production would resume.

Opening was scheduled for March 25, and the limited engagement was announced to play to April 19.

Both one-acts were announced to feature Tony Award winner Judith Ivey, Drama Desk Award winners Myra Carter and George Bartenieff as well as Kathleen Butler, Harmon Walsh and (in Sandbox only) Jesse Williams.

* Written in 1959, The Sandbox, press notes state, "introduces one of America's most dysfunctional families, a grasping, materialistic married couple who stage a perverse seaside idyll destined to end in the demise of the wife's aged mother. In this pioneering work, Albee manipulates clichés of language and social mores, breaking the fourth wall and purposefully destroying the audience's illusion of passive observation of the action of the play."

American Dream, written in 1960, "continues the story of The Sandbox's Mommy and Daddy. It is a ferocious, uproarious attack on the substitution of artificial for real values, a startling tale of murder and morality that rocks middle-class ethics to their complacent foundations. In it, Albee explores the hollowness of the American dream, as well as the fallacy of the ideal American family."

Bartenieff plays Daddy with Butler as Mrs. Barker, Carter as Grandma, Ivey as Mommy, Walsh as the American Dream and Williams as the Angel of Death (in The Sandbox).

Edward Albee won Best Play Tony Awards for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? He was also Tony nominated for The Ballad of the Sad Café, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance and Seascape. Albee is also the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes, the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts.

Four major Edward Albee productions will be seen during the 2007-08 season, during which the playwright will turn 80 (on March 12). The season has been dubbed "The Albee Season" and includes Peter and Jerry at Second Stage; Me, Myself and I at the McCarter Theatre; The Sandbox and The American Dream at the Cherry Lane Theatre; and Occupant at the Signature Theatre Company.

Show times are Tuesdays at 7 PM, Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8 PM with matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 PM.

Tickets, priced $60 (regular), $20 (student advance) and $10 (student rush), are available by calling (212) 239-6200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com. The Cherry Lane Theatre is located in Manhattan at 38 Commerce Street, near Seventh Avenue, between Bedford and Barrow Streets. For more information visit www.cherrylanetheatre.org.

 
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