The National Actors Theatre's production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has announced a second extension. The play, which casts Academy Award winner Al Pacino in the title role, opened Oct. 3. Originally scheduled to run through Oct. 26, the play was first extended to Nov. 3. The Bertolt Brecht play will now close following the Nov. 10 performance.
Directed by Simon McBurney, the cast includes Pacino; Ajay Naidu as The Barker, Bowl, Shorty and Court Physician; Billy Crudup as Flake and The Defense Counsel; Chris McKinney as Caruther and Greenwool; John Ventimiglia as Butcher and Crocket; Jack Willis as Mulberry; Dominic Chianese as Clark; William Sadler as Sheet, O'Casey and the Judge; Chazz Palminteri as Ernesto Roma; Lothaire Bluteau as Young Inna and The Defendant Fish; Charles Durning as Old Dogsborough; Tom Riis Farrell as Young Dogsborough and Pastor; Jacqueline McKenzie as Dockdaisy; Michael Goldfinger and Matte Osian as Arturo Ui's Bodyguards; Paul Giamatti as Ted Ragg, Prosector and Ignatius Dullfeet; John Goodman as Emanuele Giri; Sterling Brown as Goodwill; Robert Stanton as Gaffles; Tony Randall as The Actor; Steve Buscemi as Giuseppe "The Florist" Givola; Novella Nelson as A Wounded Woman; and Linda Emond as Betty Dullfeet.
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This production of Arturo Ui features a translation by George Tabori, and the creative team includes Robert Innes Hopkins (set and costume designer), Paul Anderson (lighting designer), Christopher Shutt (sound designer), Christina Cunningham (costumes), Ruppert Bohle (projection designer) and Robert-Charles Vallance (hair, wig and make-up designer). Doug Hosney serves as the production stage manager with Christine Catti and Andrew Neal as stage managers.
Director McBurney's New York credits include Mnemonic, The Noise of Time, The Street of Crocodiles and The Chairs. Written while in exile in 1941, Brecht's Arturo Ui recasts Hitler's rise as a Chicago gangster's takeover of the Windy City's green-grocery trade. The play bowed on Broadway in November 1963. The production featured incidental music by Jule Styne and a cast that included Sandy Baron, Leonardo Cimino, James Coco, Michael Constantine, Elisha Cook, Roger De Koven, James Frawley, John Karlen, Henry Lascoe, Christopher Plummer, Madeleine Sherwood, William Shust, Lionel Stander, Glenn Stensel, Murvyn Vye and Robert Weil. It ran for just five previews and eight performances. A 1968 revival at the Billy Rose Theatre ran 10 performances.
Al Pacino made his Broadway debut in the 1969 production of Does a Tiger Wear Necktie?, earning a Tony Award for his performance. He scored another Tony for his role in the 1977 revival of The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. The stage and film actor was last on Broadway in 1996 in a revival of Hughie, which he also directed. Pacino's other Broadway credits include Camino Real, King Richard III, American Buffalo, Chinese Coffee and Salome. He received the Academy Award for his work in the film "Scent of a Woman" and stars in the New Line motion picture "Simone."
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui plays Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, which is located on Spruce Street between Park Row and Gold Street. All tickets and memberships for the National Actors Theatre are available through Telecharge by calling (212) 239 6280.
—By Andrew Gans
