George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber continue to be one of the hottest playwriting teams of the day. Their 1932 comedy Dinner at Eight will play Lincoln Center's newly free Vivian Beaumont Theatre this fall. Gerald Gutierrez will direct. No cast has been announced.
The revival will begin Nov. 21 and open on Dec. 19.
The soapy comedy-drama (later a famous MGM picture) tells overlapping stories of guests invited to and preparing for dinner at Millicent and Oliver Jordan's. She's neurotic, he's losing his fortune, and their daughter is having an affair with a depressed, faded matinee idol who is just a trigger-pull away from oblivion.
The 1933 film starred Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Billie Burke and Lionel Barrymore under George Cukor's direction. The original Broadway production featured Constance Collier, Sam Levene, Ann Andrews, Malcolm Duncan. Kaufman himself directed the 232 performance run. A 1967 revival at the Alvin Theatre was directed by Tyrone Guthrie and starred Darren McGavin, Walter Pidgeon, June Havoc and Arlene Francis.
The show marks Gerald Gutierrez's return to Lincoln Center after a longish absence. Gutierrez was a mainstay at LCT in the '90s, putting up award winning productions such as The Heiress, A Delicate Balance, Abe Lincoln in Illinois and The Most Happy Fella. He also helmed Ivanov and Ring Round the Moon for LCT. He was replaced out of town as director of the recent Broadway production of A Moon for the Misbegotten and briefly left the theatre entirely. Recently, he staged Boys and Girls at Playwrights Horizons. Kaufman and Ferber also wrote The Royal Family, which recently received high profile mountings in Chicago and London. The show is also the subject of a Broadway-bound musical which has been making the rounds the last few seasons. Dinner at Eight was given the musical treatment by librettist Julie Gilbert, composer Ben Schaechter and lyricist Frank Evans. The show was given a few readings in New York in the past couple years.
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LCT will also be premiering the new play by Jules Feiffer, A Bad Friend. Jerry Zaks will direct.
