The Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway production of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock starts previews at the Gramercy Theatre on Sept. 22. The show opens Oct. 19.
O'Casey's story portrays the Boyle family, doomed to poverty in the early 1920s, during the time of the Civil War. The cast for Juno includes Derbhla Molloy (Juno Boyle), Jim Norton (Captain Jack Boyle), Thomas Jay Ryan (Joxer Daly), Norbert Leo Butz (Jerry Devine) as well as Gretchen Cleevely, Liam Craig, Cynthia Darlow, Jason Butler Harner, Roberta Maxwell, George Heslin, Edward Hyland and John Keating.
As reported earlier, John Crowley, associate artistic director at Donmar Warehouse, will direct the show. The design team for Juno includes set and costume design by Rae Smith, lighting design by Brian MacDevitt with original music and sound by Donald DiNicola.
Playwright O'Casey established his name in the 1920s with such bitter comedy-dramas as The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924), The Plough and the Stars (1926), The Silver Tassie (1928), Purple Dust (1940), Red Roses for Me (1946), Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) and The Drums of Father Ned (1956).
Director Crowley makes his New York directing debut with Juno. The brother of Tony Award-winning designer Bob Crowley, John Crowley's London directing credits are How I Learned to Drive, One for the Road, The Master Builder, and the Sondheim-Lapine musical Into the Woods, which was designed by his brother Bob Crowley. According to production sources, Juno was first staged in New York in 1926 at the Mayfair Theatre. A subsequent Broadway production in 1940 starred Sara Allgood and Barry Fitzgerald in the roles they had originated in the 1924 Dublin premiere. A musical comedy version opened in 1959 starring Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas, with music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein and book by Joseph Stein. In 1988, the most recent Broadway mounting was made at the Gate Theatre. Juno was recently voted 15th place in the Royal National Theatre's survey of the Twentieth Century's Most Significant Plays.
Tickets are $55. The Gramercy Theatre and box office is located at 127 E. 23 St. For tickets call the Gramercy Theatre at (212) 777-4900 or TicketMaster at (212) 307-4100.
-- By Murdoch McBride
