Piazza's Clark, Sher and Lucas Will Reunite in Prayer at Playwrights Horizons

By Kenneth Jones
09 Jul 2008

Tony Award winner Victoria Clark.
Tony Award winner Victoria Clark.

Tony Award winner Victoria Clark will re-team with director Bartlett Sher and playwright Craig Lucas, her collaborators on The Light in the Piazza, when she stars in the Playwrights Horizons production of Prayer for My Enemy.

Clark, currently of Roundabout Theatre Company's The Marriage of Bette and Boo, joins a cast that includes the previously announced Tony Award nominee Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening, the upcoming Hair for Shakespeare in the Park), 2008 Theatre World Award winner Cassie Beck (The Drunken City) and Skipp Sudduth (Lincoln Center's current South Pacific, directed by Sher). Sher directed the musical The Light in the Piazza for Lincoln Center Theater. The libretto was by Lucas (The Dying Gaul, Three Postcards, Prelude to a Kiss).

This marks the New York premiere of Obie Award winner and Tony nominee Lucas' play, which begins previews Nov. 14 at the Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater on West 42nd Street.

Clark received Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards, as well as a Drama League Honor, for her performance as Margaret Johnson in The Light in the Piazza. Her other Broadway credits include Titanic, How to Succeed…, Urinetown, Cabaret, Guys & Dolls, A Grand Night for Singing and Sunday in the Park with George, plus national tours of Les Misérables and Cats. For City Center's Encores! series, she appeared in Juno, Follies and Bye Bye Birdie.

In 2007 PS Classics released her debut solo album "Fifteen Seconds from Grace."

According to production notes, "It's a hell of a night for the Noones — father Austin's watching his nature shows and trying to keep from falling off the wagon, mother Karen's (Victoria Clark) keeping an eye on Austin (Skipp Sudduth), son Billy's (Jonathan Groff) just back from Iraq, and pregnant daughter Marianne's (Cassie Beck) upset about the state of her marriage to Tad, Billy's childhood friend who may still harbor a crush on him. With the Red Sox battling the Yankees for the 2004 AL title, an American family's long-held secrets are dragged to the fore in what may be its final reckoning. Prayer for My Enemy is a paean to our age, a keenly-layered drama about the preciousness of life and the grace to share common ground — even with those we love the least."

Also new for the 2008-09 PH season is Drama Desk Award winner Marylouise Burke (Fuddy Meers, plus Kimberly Akimbo, Broadway's Is He Dead? and the revival of Into the Woods) has joined the cast of The Savannah Disputation, the New York premiere of a new play by Evan Smith (Psych and The Uneasy Chair at Playwrights Horizons, Servicemen at The New Group). Directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie (Chicago, New Jerusalem), the production will begin previews Feb. 6, 2009, at Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage.

Burke joins a cast that features five-time Tony Award nominee and three-time Obie Award winner Dana Ivey (Driving Miss Daisy, Sunday in the Park with George and Smith's The Uneasy Chair at Playwrights Horizons, The Rivals, Butley).

According to production notes, "When susceptible Catholic spinster Margaret (Marylouise Burke) politely admits door-to-door Pentecostal missionary Melissa into her home, her seemingly-solid faith starts to waver — much to the chagrin of her feisty sister Mary (Dana Ivey). But who's the blasphemer and who's the believer? Before long, the God-fearing sisters have ambushed their steadfast 'guest' with the aid of an unsuspecting local priest, setting the scene for a showdown of truly biblical proportions."

Scott Cohen (Drunk Enough To Say I Love You at The Public, Losing Louie on Broadway, TV's "Gilmore Girls" and "The Return of Jezebel James") has joined the cast of the PH season opener Three Changes by Nicky Silver. This completes casting for the first show of the season, which starts previews Aug. 22 and also features Dylan McDermott and Maura Tierney.

Additional casting for all six of the season's productions will also be announced in the coming weeks.

For information call (212) 279-4200 or visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.