Tony Winner Blakemore to Direct Broadway Revival of Blithe Spirit
By Andrew Gans
and Robert Simonson
02 Sep 2008
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Michael Blakemore
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Tony Award winner Michael Blakemore, most recently represented on Broadway with the world premiere of Mark Twain's Is He Dead?, will direct a Broadway revival of the classic Noel Coward comedy Blithe Spirit.
Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel and Steve Traxler, who are also producing the upcoming revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, will produce, according to The New York Times. A March 2009 opening at a Shubert theatre to be announced is planned.
In Blithe Spirit, one of Coward's biggest successes, novelist Charles Condomine, living with his second wife, Ruth, invites a local medium, Madame Arcati, to his house. His intention is to do some research into the spirit world for his new book. But he gets more than he bargained for when Arcati conjures up the ghost of Charles first wife, Elvira. Caught between one live wife and one dead wife — both jealous of the other — Charles thinks matters couldn't be worse. That is, until he's saddled with the ghosts of two dead wives.
Blakemore's Broadway directing credits include Democracy, Deuce, Is He Dead?, Copenhagen (Tony Award), Kiss Me, Kate (Tony Award), The Life, City of Angels, Noises Off and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
The most recent revival of Coward's comedy played the Neil Simon Theatre in 1987. Directed by Brian Murray, the cast featured Richard Chamberlain, Blythe Danner, Judith Ivey, Geraldine Page, Nicola Cavendish, Patricia Conolly and William LeMassena.
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