Clybourne Park Likes the Neighborhood; Four Weeks Added to Broadway Run

By Kenneth Jones
23 May 2012

Christina Kirk and Frank Wood
Christina Kirk and Frank Wood
Photo by Nathan Johnson

Clybourne Park, the 2012 Tony Award-nominated Best Play, will stick around the Broadway neighborhood a little longer. Producer Jordan Roth announced May 23 that the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy-drama about race and real estate will get four additional weeks, now to Aug. 12.

Bruce Norris' play, directed by Tony nominee Pam MacKinnon, is at the Walter Kerr Theatre. A 16-week engagement was initially announced for the play that began Off-Broadway in 2010. The Broadway staging reunited that cast and creative team, to critical acclaim.

Tickets are now on sale for all performances.

Clybourne Park, which takes its inspiration from A Raisin in the Sun to discuss the roots of social change in an American suburb, is nominated for four Tony Awards including Best Play (Bruce Norris), Best Direction of a Play (Pam MacKinnon), Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Jeremy Shamos) and Best Scenic Design of a Play (Daniel Ostling). The play won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and Olivier Award for a separate London production.

Here's how it's billed: Clybourne Park "is the wickedly funny and fiercely provocative new play about race, real estate and the volatile values of each. Clybourne Park explodes in two outrageous acts set 50 years apart. Act One takes place in 1959, as nervous community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family. Act Two is set in the same house in the present day, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification."

This staging had a critically acclaimed pre-Broadway engagement at Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. The cast includes Crystal A. Dickinson, Brendan Griffin, Damon Gupton, Christina Kirk, Annie Parisse, Jeremy Shamos and Frank Wood.

The design team features Daniel Ostling (scenic design), Ilona Somogyi (costume design), Allen Lee Hughes (lighting design) and John Gromada (sound design).

Clybourne Park is produced by Jujamcyn Theaters, Jane Bergère, Roger Berlind/Quintet Productions, Eric Falkenstein/Dan Frishwasser, Ruth Hendel/Harris Karma Productions, JTG Theatricals, Daryl Roth, Jon B. Platt, Center Theatre Group, in association with Lincoln Center Theater.

The Walter Kerr Theatre box office is 219 W. 48th Street. For tickets, visit telecharge.com.