Directed by O'Brien, Lithgow's solo show plays the Lincoln Center Theater venue Sunday and Monday evenings through June 2 with an official opening scheduled for May 12. Show time for the 14-performance run is 7 PM.
(Lithgow's show coincides with Paul Rudnick's The New Century, which is also seen on the Newhouse stage Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8 PM with matinees Saturdays at 2 PM and Sundays at 3 PM.)
Stories By Heart, according to press notes, is a "touching and funny meditation on the art and essence of storytelling. Invoking memories of his grandmother and father before him, Lithgow traces his own history as an actor and storyteller, a history spanning three generations, culminating in a tour-de-force performance of the P.G. Wodehouse story 'Uncle Fred Flits By,' in which the actor performs a bravura, forty-minute comic monologue, spouting Wodehouse's dazzling language – portraying nine distinct, outrageous characters with zany abandon."
John Lithgow was most recently on Broadway as con man Lawrence Jameson Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. His other recent theatrical credits include A.R. Gurney's political comedy Mrs. Farnsworth and The Retreat From Moscow. Lithgow won Tony Awards for his work in The Changing Room and Sweet Smell of Success and received Tony nominations for Scoundrels, Requiem for a Heavyweight and M. Butterfly. He was also seen in the "Dreamgirls" film as a 1970s Hollywood producer and is scheduled to return to Broadway in the fall in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.
Jack O'Brien won Tony Awards for his direction of The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray and Henry IV. He was also Tony-nominated for his work on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Invention of Love, The Full Monty, Two Shakespearean Actors and Porgy and Bess. O'Brien, who has served as artistic director of San Diego's Old Globe for the last 26 years, will pass the torch to Jerry Patch and Darko Tresnjak this year. O'Brien is attached as director to the new musical Houdini. Tickets, priced $35, are available at the Lincoln Center Theater box office (150 West 65 Street), at telecharge.com or by visiting www.lct.org.
