The new full-length work — which combines Albee's play Zoo Story with a new first act Homelife set the morning before — now goes by the collective title Peter and Jerry. Pam MacKinnon directs the production set to run May 20-June 20 at the Connecticut stage.
In Zoo Story, Albee penned the meeting of two strangers — the middle-of-the road Peter (Wood) and the younger Jerry (Weller) — in New York City's Central Park. With Homelife, the playwright revisits Peter and delves into the character's morning (on the same day before he goes off to the park) spent with his wife, Ann (Day).
Wood earned a Tony as Featured Actor for his turn in Side Man and has also appeared in Hollywood Arms and The Wax. Day made her Broadway debut in Proof having appeared Off-Broadway in 3 Postcards, Blue Window and How I Learned to Drive. She has since appeared in Bliss and Helen. Weller appeared on Broadway in The Little Foxes, The Rehearsal, Six Degrees of Separation and Off-Broadway in The Shape of Things, The Country Club and Plunge before his turn in Take Me Out as Shane Mungitt.
Hartford Stage commissioned the new companion work from Albee, though the playwright had already been formulating the idea. Albee's other works include The American Dream, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, All Over, Seascape, The Lady From Dubuque, The Man Who Had Three Arms, Finding the Sun, Marriage Play, Three Tall Women, Fragments, The Lorca Play, The Play About the Baby, The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? and Occupant.
Director MacKinnon has directed Albee's The Play About the Baby (Chicago's Goodman Theatre and Philadelphia Theatre Company), The Goat (Houston's Alley Theatre and Vienna's English Theatre). Other directing credits include Tina Howe's Water Music, Yazmina Reza's Life X 3, Christopher Dehnam's In Film, Gina Gionfriddo's Guinevere, Donald Margulies' Dinner with Friends and Erin Courtney's Owls: A Phone Play. Tickets to Peter and Jerry at Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street in downtown Hartford, CT will be available by calling (860) 527-5151. For more information, visit www.hartfordstage.org.
