|
 |
Homecomings: A Preview of the 2009 Off-Broadway Season
By Robert Simonson
12 Jan 2009
 |
|
Susan Stroman
|
| photo by Aubrey Reuben | Many a happy return will occur during the 2009 Off-Broadway season.
One such homecoming is even called Happiness. It is the second collaboration between director-choreographer Susan Stroman and librettist John Weidman. Their first such work was the 1999 hit Contact, a landmark credit for both artists, and a long-running attraction for Lincoln Center Theater. This time, they're teamed up with Grey Gardens composers Michael Korie and Scott Frankel to tell the story of a group of New Yorkers caught on a subway train. Opening is March 30 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse.
Also coming back to the New York theatre after a hiatus will be playwright Lisa Loomer. Many thought her 2003 play Living Out, about the tangled web of modern-day child care, was one of the best of that season. Her new work, Distracted, at the Roundabout Theatre Company, is again about parenthood. Cynthia Nixon, who memorably expressed troubled motherhood in Rabbit Hole, plays a mother who attempts to figure out if Attention Deficit Disorder is the root of her son's problems. Opening is March 4.
Back after her twin 2004 successes, Intimate Apparel and Fabulation, is playwright Lynn Nottage. Her Ruined will open at Manhattan Theatre Club on Feb. 10. The drama, set in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is about Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman in a land torn apart by civil war. Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey traveled to Africa as research for this play. Whoriskey will also direct Inked Baby, Christina Anderson's play about a woman who asks her sister to help her make the child that she and her husband cannot. Tony winner LaChanze stars. Previews begin at Playwrights Horizons March 5.
Also at Playwrights Horizons is The Savannah Disputation, a new play by PH favorite Evan Smith, whose work has not been seen in Manhattan since Psych in 2001. Walter Bobbie directs the piece about a Catholic spinster who lets a door-to-door Pentecostal missionary inside her home. The experienced cast includes Reed Birney, Marylouise Burke, Dana Ivey and Kellie Overbey.
Playwright Douglas Carter Beane had one of the biggest hits of his career with 2005's The Little Dog Laughed at Second Stage. He and the nonprofit team up again with another slice of celebrity culture satire, Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, a play about husband and wife gossip columnists with names like nineteenth-century stage stars. Scott Ellis directs. Opening is in April.
|  | |
Ethan Coen
|
| photo by Doug Hamilton |
Oscar winner Ethan Coen, who found a career beyond filmmaking last season when his collection of one-acts, Almost an Evening, became a hit at the Atlantic Theater Company, has quickly produced a new trio of short plays, entitled Offices. It will premiere in the spring. The Mint Theater Company found success some seasons back with a forgotten play by nobody-knew-he-was-a-playwright novelist D.H. Lawrence. The troupe will go back to the well with The Widowing of Mrs. Holyroyd, which is set in a coal-mining village. Previews begin Feb. 4.
New productions of classic plays will come from a variety of sources this winter and spring. Irish Repertory Theatre will stick close to what it does best, presenting a new look at Brian Friel's Aristocrats. Charlotte Moore will direct the 1979 play about a family gathering for the wedding of the youngest sister. Opening is Jan. 25.
Classic Stage Company will continue to explore the plays of Anton Chekhov, reviving Uncle Vanya. Austin Pendleton will direct an enviable cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mamie Gummer, Denis O'Hare, Peter Sarsgaard and Louis Zorich. First preview is Jan. 17. The New Group, not normally known for presenting plays of great age, will have a go at O'Neill's lengthy and seldom-seen twist on The Oresteia, the three-act Mourning Becomes Electra. The long show will be done with a meal break. In the cast are Mark Blum, Robert Hogan, Jena Malone and Lili Taylor. The marathons begin Jan. 27 at the Acorn. Continued...
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2009 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|