As previously reported, the Cherry Lane will present Albee's The American Dream and The Sandbox at the Off-Broadway venue March 11-April 19 with an official opening March 25. Both productions will feature Tony Award winner Judith Ivey, Drama Desk Award winners Myra Carter and George Bartenieff as well as Kathleen Butler, Harmon Walsh and Jesse Williams (Sandbox only).
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 will play 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).
Albee will take part in audience discussions following the March 18 and April 8 performances. 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.
