Ruffalo, Gazzara, Hadary, Kybart and Kaczmarek Set for Awake and Sing! at LATW

By Adam Hetrick
21 Dec 2009

Ben Gazzara
Ben Gazzara
Photo by Aubrey Reuben

Ben Gazzara, Jonathan Hadary and Peter Kybart will join Mark Ruffalo for the L.A. Theatreworks production of Awake and Sing! in January 2010.

Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, The Light in the Piazza), who helmed the 2006 Broadway revival of the Clifford Odets play, will reunite with cast members from that production including Ruffalo, Gazzara, Hadary and Kybart.

Also joining the production will be Jane Kaczmarek (Lost in Yonkers, "Malcolm in the Middle"). The previously announced Lauren Ambrose has withdrawn from the production.

Performances run Jan. 13-17, 2010. Additional casting will be announced shortly.

According to press notes "Awake and Sing! compassionately portrays the struggles of a Jewish immigrant family crowded together in a cramped Bronx tenement and laid low by the Great Depression Tragedy, hope and politics are all interwoven to create a powerful work as illuminating and engaging today as it was when first performed in the 1930s."

As with all LATW productions, the production will be recorded and broadcast on LATW's nationally syndicated radio theatre series, "The Play's the Thing."

For tickets to any of "The Play's the Thing" productions at the Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Boulevard, call the L.A. Theatre Works box office at (310) 827-0889.

For more information visit latw.org.