Last Chance to catch Eugene O'Neill's most uncharacteristically warm and sweet comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, back on the Great White Way at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre. The revival, staged by Daniel Sullivan, opened Mar. 19 and ends as scheduled, May 3.
Debra Monk (Steel Pier) and Craig T. Nelson (filmdom's Poltergeist, TV's "Coach") star in this 1933 look at an idealized American family (often described as the other side of Long Day's Journey Into Night). Monk's other credits include the Roundabout revival of Company and NY Theatre Workshop's A Narrow Bed in 1987.
Also in the cast at Lincoln Center's Vivan Beaumont Theatre are Leslie Lyles, (Life During Wartime), Leo Burmester, Dylan Chalfy, Jack Davidson, Siobhan Dunne, Jenna Lamia, Steven Marcus, Tracy Middendorf, Mark Rosenthal, James Murtaugh, Rufus H. Read, Jenn Thompson, and Sam Trammell (My Night With Reg).
Designing the show are Dunya Ramicova (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting) and Thomas Lynch (set). Stanley Silverman has composed the underscoring.
Director Sullivan stepped down in May as artistic director of Seattle Rep after 17 years at the venue. A three-time Tony-nominated director, Sullivan is best known to theatregoers beyond Seattle as director of Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig, his own Inspecting Carol, and Herb Gardner's Conversations With My Father. Other plays by Eugene O'Neill include Long Day's Journey Into Night, Beyond The Horizon and The Hairy Ape.
For tickets and information on Ah, Wilderness! at the Beaumont, 150 West 65th St., call (212) 239-6200.
The last time Ah, Wilderness! was on Broadway (1988), it was directed by Arvin Brown and starred Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick.
Following O'Neill at the Beaumont will be. . . William Shakespeare. Nicholas Hytner, of Carousel renown, will direct the comedy Twelfth Night, with rehearsals starting May 4. Designing the show are Bob Crowley (sets), Natasha Katz (lighting) and Catherine Zuber (costumes). Jeanine Tesori, who composed Off-Broadway's Violet, will provide musical underscoring. Previews are set for June 18, for an opening July 13 and a run through Aug. 30.
Twelfth Night will be a Lincoln Center Theatre production in association with the annual, three-week Lincoln Center Festival.
Helen Hunt, Oscar-winning star of As Good As It Gets and TV's "Mad About You," will star as Viola. Brian Murray -- one of NY's most ubiquitous stage actors -- will star as Sir Toby Belch. Murray's recent roles include Da, The Little Foxes (Lincoln Center), Misalliance and Travels With My Aunt. Kyra Sedgwick (filmdom's Singles) will play Olivia.
Philip Bosco (Lend Me A Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo) plays Malvolio while Max Wright, who won raves for his work in Ivanov but is best known for playing the dad on TV's "Alf," will be Andrew Aguecheek. Also in the cast are Amy Hill (Maria), Julio Monge (Antonio) and Paul Rudd (Orsini).
Tickets ($60 and $50) are now on sale via Tele-charge, (212) 239 6200.
Recent Shakespeare mountings in New York include Macbeth, currently at the Public Theatre, in a production starring Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett; Richard II and III at Theatre for a New Audience; and a British production of A Midsummer Night's Dream on Broadway in the 1995-96 season.
Twelfth Night will be a Lincoln Center Theatre production in association with the annual, three-week Lincoln Center Festival.
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As for the rest of Lincoln Center's schedule:
At the Vivian Beamount, next season will bring the musical Parade (Jan. 1999), followed by the Michael John LaChiusa musical, Marie Christine, directed by Graciela Daniele.
Harold Prince will direct Parade, which has a book by Alfred Uhry (Last Night of Ballyhoo) and a score by Jason Robert Brown. Danny Ezralow will choreograph.
Parade tells the story of a Jewish factory owner in the deep South who finds his identity and his manhood only after he is falsely accused in the death of a 13-year-old girl.
Rehearsals begin in October with previews starting before the end of 1998 and an opening scheduled for Jan.1999. Lincoln Center is producing the musical in conjunction with Garth Drabinsky's Livent (Ragtime, Candide).
Brent Carver, who won a Tony for Kiss of the Spider Woman, stars in Parade, alongside Carolee Carmello (Hello Again). Designing the show are Judith Dolan (costumes), Riccardo Hernandez (sets) and Howell Binkley (lighting).
As for Marie Christine, LaChiusa, who earned a cult following with his Hello Again Off-Broadway and Chronicle of a Death Foretold on Broadway, is again collaborating with director choreographer Daniele (Ragtime) on Marie Christine, which is described as "a quasi-operatic version of Medea, set in 1880s New Orleans and Chicago."
Designing Marie Christine are Peggy Eisenhauer & Jules Fisher (lighting) and Christopher Barreca (sets). Coincidentally, director Prince staged LaChiusa's Off-Broadway disappointment, The Petrified Prince.
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Meanwhile, Pride's Crossing finished its run at the Off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse space Apr. 5. Now the William Finn musical A New Brain begins previews May 14 for a June 18 opening.
Penny Fuller, who recently played stepmom to An American Daughter, will play Malcolm Gets' mother in Brain. Other key roles will be handled by Kristen Chenoweth from Strike Up the Band, Chip Zien from Into the Woods, Mary Testa from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Christopher Innvar from Floyd Collins, Keith Byron Kirk from Miss Saigon, Michael Mandell from A Christmas Carol and Liz Larsen from Damn Yankees.
Gets, who merrily rolled off to sitcomland (TV's "Caroline in the City") after the Off-Broadway's Merrily We Roll Along, is back on the boards for a while, playing Gordon Schwinn, a songwriter who has time to reassess his life while confined to a hospital bed, confronted with the possibility of brain surgery.
There's more than a slight autobiographical spin to the book, which Finn wrote with his prize-winning Falsettos collaborator, James Lapine. Toni-Leslie James will do the costumes, Tony Meola the sound, Peggy Eisenhauer the lighting and David Gallo the sets.
