Marc Wolf may stop Asking & Telling at New York City's Theatre at St. Clements Feb. 6, but he's not done asking and telling. His solo piece on gays and lesbians in the military will travel on to Washington, DC, where it will play a brief stint at the Studio Theatre April 28-30.
Another American: Asking & Telling began performances Dec. 7 for a run originally set through Jan. 30. Tony-nominated director Joe Mantello (Love! Valour! Compassion!) directs for the New Group.
To create his piece, Wolf interviewed straight, gay and lesbian members of the military whose careers span World War II to the current armed forces, as well as civil rights lawyers, judges, professors and politicians. Their words, edited and cut, are used verbatim as monologues in Wolf's multi-character work.
Wolf has staged Asking & Telling at New York Stage & Film, Provincetown Repertory Theatre, Dixon Place and Mabou Mines. His Off Broadway roles have included Ray and Kevin in The Party, Max in Bent and Platonov in Wild Honey.
Mantello most recently directed Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, bash and Paula Vogel's The Mineola Twins. Other credits include Mizlansky/Zilinsky, Proposals, Snakebit and the film version of Love! Valor! Compassion!. Playwright and actor David Marshall Grant makes his debut as an associate producer with Asking & Telling. Grant, whose first play Snakebit debuted Off-Broadway in Nov. 1998 and whose Current Events will makes its premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in spring, 2000, acted alongside Mantello in Angels in America and performed in Broadway's Bent, The Survivor and the Roundabout's recent revival of Chekhov's Three Sisters.
Tickets are $35-$20 and available by calling Ticket Central at (212) 279 4200. The Theatre at St. Clements is located at 423 West 46th Street.
The New Group's follow-up to Asking & Telling has not yet been announced, but March dates are tentatively slated for the run.
-- By Christine Ehren
