Craig Lucas' Prelude To A Kiss ends with a very special kiss -- between an old man and a young man. Charles Durning and Tate Donovan will share that smooch April 12-16 with the staged reading of Kiss at Los Angeles' Skirball Cultural Center. Nancy Malone directs.
The production, for L.A. TheatreWorks, will be recorded before a live audience for future broadcast on KCRW 89.9 FM.
In Prelude to a Kiss, Peter and Rita, two young lovers, find their new marriage completely altered by a magical kiss from an old man at their wedding. A runner up for the Pulitzer and nominated for a Tony Award, Kiss won the Outer Critics Circle, Obie and Theatre World Awards. Other works by Lucas include the plays Reckless, Blue Window and Missing Persons and the screenplays "Longtime Companion" and "Prelude to a Kiss."
Durning comes to Prelude from the McCarter Theatre's production of Glengarry Glen Ross in New Jersey. With an Academy Award nomination for "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and roles in "Tootsie" and "Dick Tracy," he has countless mini-series, movies of the week and other television credits including a stint on "Evening Shade." Theatre credits include Broadway's The Gin Game, Inherit The Wind, That Championship Season, In the Boom Boom Room and the recent Tony winning production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Kathleen Turner.
Donovan's voice gave life to Disney's "Hercules," both in the animated film and TV series. He appeared on Broadway with Judi Dench in Amy's View and Off-Broadway in The American Plan at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Also in the cast are Caroline Aaron and Arye Gross. Aaron performed on Broadway in Social Security, The Iceman Cometh, I hate Hamlet and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Gross is best known as Adam on "Ellen" with reccuring characters on "The Practice," "The Profiler" and "Diagnosis: Murder."
Tickets are $36-$32. The Skirball Cultural Center is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Boulevard. For tickets, call (310) 827-0889. L.A. TheatreWorks is on the web at http://www.latw.org.
-- By Christine Ehren
