In the intimate Peter Jay Sharp Theater in the PH complex on West 42nd Street, Gillian Jacobs plays young composer Amanda Blue, whose romantic, familial and professional worlds are influenced by men — and those worlds are shifting and prompting painful reassessment. Academy Award nominee Marsha Mason plays the composer's anxious mom, whose marriage is crumbling and who feels "invisble" in menopause.
Blair Brown directs the production, which also features Richard Masur (as the disaffected dad), Alec Beard (as a pop-rock singer who is engaged to Amanda) and Joe Paulik (as the boy who got away). The action is split between Amanda's apartment in Brooklyn and her hometown in New Hampshire.
Performances will play to Nov. 11.
A Feminine Ending (the title is a musical term) is explained this way by Playwrights Horizons: "Having recently graduated from a major conservatory, and with her rocker boyfriend on the brink of megastardom, aspiring composer Amanda Blue's 'extraordinary life' seems to be all mapped out. But when she's called home to answer a distress call from her mother about a marital crisis, Amanda's grand plan starts to unravel. A Feminine Ending is a bittersweet new comedy about dreams deferred, loves lost and learning to trust a woman's voice in a man's world."
* Sarah Treem wrote the plays Mirror, Mirror and Empty Sky. Treem graduated from the Yale School of Drama and Yale University. She has taught playwriting at Yale University and writes for the upcoming HBO television drama "In Treatment."
Masur is an Emmy Award nominee and veteran character actor ("Six Degrees of Separation," Emmy nomination for "The Burning Bed," Democracy on Broadway, The Exonerated Off-Broadway), Alec Beard appeared in Tartuffe on Broadway and As You Like It for Shakespeare in the Park, Gillian Jacobs was in Cagelove directed by Adam Rapp at Rattlestick Theatre, and Rapp's film "Blackbird." and Joe Paulik was seen in Measure for Measure at 45 Bleecker and Major Barbara at The Guthrie.
Marsha Mason is a four-time Academy Award nominee (perhaps best known for "The Goodbye Girl") and appeared on Broadway in The Good Doctor, Roundabout's Night of the Iguana and the recent Steel Magnolias.
Director Blair Brown is widely known as a Tony Award-winning actress of Copenhagen and a veteran of Broadway's James Joyce's The Dead, the most recent Cabaret, The Secret Rapture and Arcadia. She also starred in the literate, witty TV series, "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd."
The production features scenic design by Cameron Anderson, costume design by Tony Award nominee Michael Krass, lighting design by Ben Stanton and sound design by Obadiah Eaves. Production stage manager is Robyn Henry.
Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater is at 416 W. 42nd Street. The performance schedule for A Feminine Ending is Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 PM, Saturdays at 2 & 7:30 PM and Sundays at 2 & 7 PM.
Tickets (at $50) may be purchased online via TicketCentral.com, by phone at (212) 279-4200 (noon-8 PM daily), or in person at the Ticket Central box office, 416 W. 42nd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.
For more information, visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.
