By Harry Haun
Ana Reeder plays one of several chippies who parade through Charlie's playroom—"She's just so bad, so unapologetically bad"—and she does it in a fetching red wig provided by Tom Watson. "It's fun being a redhead. My little sister is a redhead."
The most memorable tart is Dixie Evans, a contract player at odds with the system ("They louse you up and call you lousy!"), but it's a very pivotal part in the play, and it rated special billing in the 1955 movie version: "And Miss Shelley Winters."
"I never watched the movie, actually," said the play's Dixie, Rachel Brosnahan. "I hadn't seen it, and I didn't want to see it because I didn't want to be influenced.
17 Apr 2013
Rachel Brosnahan Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
"This whole play has really been a trip. To make my Broadway debut in such esteemed company—Bobby, Marin—it's been a joy to come to work every day. There's such a youthful energy in the cast, and they're also so wonderfully supportive and talented. The benefit of being in one scene is you get to watch them."
The name-brand cast brought out a name-brand set of first-nighters: Neil Simon and Elaine Joyce, director Evan Cabnet; Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham (who'll sing a Steven Mercurio piece inspired by Eugene O'Neill in Prague in July); two-time Tony winner Cherry Jones and Brian J. Smith (coming next fall in The Glass Menagerie); Simon Jones (working on a Thomas Meehan workshop of Robin Hood: The Final Adventure as King John); Arian Moayed, acting couple late of Ten Chimneys, Carolyn McCormick and Byron Jennings,; Cass Morgan and Debra Monk of the original Pump Boys and Dinette; Dallas Roberts ("Just came to see Bobby [on] Broadway"); David Schwimmer (who just finished directing a half-hour NBC pilot with J.D. Simmons and Parker Posey called D.J.Nash); lyricist-director David Zippel; the star's son, Jake Cannavale of "Nurse Jackie"; Edward Hibbert; comedienne-producer Jamie deRoy and Tony Lo Bianco; a bearded Jason Butler Harner (who'll shoot a film in L.A. and then do "a play I'm really excited about"); Kate Jennings Grant; Laura Benanti (waiting to see if her series, "Go On," will go on a second season); and Steven Pasquale (who's playing Kelli O'Hara's husband in Far From Heaven June 2 at Playwrights Horizons); Madeline Brewer; writer J.T. Rogers ("at work on a play and a film"); Martha Plimpton; Morgan Spector from Harvey; Patricia McGregor and playwright Stephen Karam; director Moises Kaufman; Glengarry Glen Ross' Richard Schiff (in a hat, as perhaps an homage to the play's vintage); Stephen Lang (who just finished an ABC pilot, "Reckless," and will start a Joan Allen movie based on a Stephen King work called "The Good Marriage"); Debi Mazar; [title of show]'s Susan Blackwell; Trudie Styler sans Sting; director Michael Greif; Anne Kaufman; actor-playwright Michael Cristofer; "Uncle Mame" biographer Eric Myers; Omar Miller; composer Charles Strouse and wife Barbara; set designer-director Tony Walton and wife Jen; Tony Roberts; and Tovah Feldshuh.
Watch Playbill Video's highlights from the production:
