Red, which earned the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play, replaces the world premiere of "Nurse Jackie" creator Liz Brixus' Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?, based on the 2006 Harry Moses documentary about a trucker who buys what may be an original Jackson Pollock for $5. Anne Kauffman had been announced to direct.
Logan's two-actor drama will now fill the March 30-April 22, 2012, slot. It will play Ringling Museum of Art's Asolo Theater.
Asolo Rep scuttled its commissioned production of Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? when it discovered that another playwright had also authored a work with similar subject matter. Stephen Sachs' Bakersfield Mist, about an unemployed bartender who purchases a possible Pollock painting, is currently playing a rolling world-premiere. It also takes inspiration from the Moses film.
"Having to make a change in play selection is always difficult and is almost always dictated by outside circumstances," said producing artistic director Michael Donald Edwards in a statement. "Asolo Rep had commissioned a theatrical version of the documentary 'Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?!,' but we recently discovered that a California playwright has independently written and produced another play based on the main events and characters of the documentary, albeit with a changed title and character names. Since our piece could no longer be a world premiere, our approach to the production was no longer viable. While this news was disappointing to us, it presented us with a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with the Ringling Museum on a different work about the art world, one that just happened to win six Tony Awards in 2010, including the prize for Best Play."
The previously announced season includes the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady, directed by Tony Award winner Frank Galati (Ragtime, The Color Purple), which will open the season Nov. 18-23. Kaufman and Hart's Once in a Lifetime, about two out-of-work stage actors who make a go of it in Hollywood, will be staged by Mark Rucker Jan. 6-April 1, 2012. Greg Leaming will direct Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning comedy about a parental breakdown, God of Carnage, which will run Jan. 13-Feb. 29, 2012.
Gordon Greenberg (Working, Jacques Brel) will helm Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer's play Yentl, adapted from the short story by Singer about a young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to educate herself, which will run Jan. 20-April 26, 2012.
Peter Amster will direct Noel Coward's comedy about desperate London housewives, Fallen Angels, March 9-May 13, 2012. Michael Donald Edwards' Cuban-set take on Shakespeare's classic, Hamlet, Prince of Cuba, will run March 23-May 6, 2012.
Jeff Calhoun will direct Noah Racey in Tommy Tune Presents: State of the Art Song and Dance, May 25-June 17, 2012. Racey will also choreograph the developmental presentation.
Asolo Rep will also present its Unplugged new play festival in spring 2012; and Dmitry Troyanovsky will stage the 45-minute presentation of Hamlet Redux, part of Asolo Rep's New Stages program, which will begin a tour Oct. 6.
Programming for the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training season will include Anthony Clarvoe's The Brothers Karamazov (Nov. 1-20); Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero (Jan. 3-22, 2012); Friedrich Schiller's The Robbers (Feb. 1-March 11, 2012); and Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine (April 3-22, 2012).
For tickets phone (941) 351-8000 or visit AsoloRep.
