Playwright Russell Lees is still working on a new play that was to have premiered in spring 2000 at Pittsburgh Public Theatre, so instead the company will offer the area premiere of Betty's Summer Vacation, Christopher Durang darkly funny satire of tabloid culture, April 20-May 21.
This also marks the regional premiere of Betty's Summer Vacation, about a vacationer who spends time in a "summer share" seaside cottage inhabited by a sex maniac, a serial killer, an abuse victim and an alcoholic, all to the horror of Betty and the joy of an offstage audience delighting in the lurid proceedings.
Munson Hicks (the actor of the Public's Arcadia and As You Like It) will direct. Official opening is April 28. There is no cast yet.
The comedy had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in early 1999 and was poised for a commercial move that didn't occur due to lack of a suitable Off-Broadway venue. The play will have its Washington DC premiere May 17-June 25 at The Studio Theatre.
* Lees' play, meanwhile, was said to be about Thomas Jefferson.
"Russell is hard at work on fascinating material but I've decided his project needs a little more think time," said Public artistic director Edward Gilbert. "You can't rush these things."
Lees is author of the political comedy, Nixon's Nixon.
Gilbert steps down as Pittsburgh Public artistic director at the end of the current season to be replaced by Ted Pappas.
-- By Kenneth Jones
