Richard Greenberg's latest, Everett Beekin, which is due to open at Lincoln Center Theater in October, will star Bebe Neuwirth, reported the New York Times. The show will mark the first time the Tony-winning Neuwirth has created a role in a fresh New York production since Chicago, and the first time she has originated a role in a Manhattan play in many years. Robin Bartlett will also star.
Everett Beekin had its world premiere engagement last year at South Coast Repertory Theatre. It is the fourth of the Three Days of Rain playwright's works to premiere at the theatre.
This new comic effort traces a family's history in America, from their arrival in the 1940s to the present, where the third generation is attempting to adjust to life in Southern California. Has life gotten better for the family? To one granddaughter, who finds her sister conducting "historic" tours of a new bridge connecting hotels to a shopping mall, the answer is clear.
Evan Yionoulis directed at SCR. She has helmed three Greenberg premieres: Three Days of Rain, The American Plan at Manhattan Theatre Club and The Author's Voice at Ensemble Theatre. Other credits include Reno Once Removed, Wendy MacLeod's The My House Play and the New York Newsday 1995 Oppenheimer Award winner, Why We Have a Body.
Everett Beekin's SCR cast featured Jeff Allin (Plenty) as Jack/Bee, Tessa Auberjonois (Trainspotting) as Miri/Laurel, Kandis Chappell (L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award winner for Collected Stories), Nike Doukas as Nell/Anna, Carole Goldman as Ma/Waitress and Adam Scott (Uncle Bob) as Jimmy/Ev. Neuwirth won Tony Awards for Sweet Charity and Chicago, in which she gave a landmark performance as murderess Velma Kelly. Since then, she was cast, briefly, in an out-of-town tryout of Kander and Ebb's musical Over & Over, but left the production due to artistic difference just two weeks before the first preview. She starred in The Taming of the Shrew at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1999 and will act there again this summer in Diva. But, most of her time on stage in recent years has clocked in return engagement in Chicago and, more recently, Fosse.
-- Robert Simonson
