Woody Harrelson and Frankie Hyman's Comedy, Bullet for Adolf, Ends Off-Broadway Run Sept. 30

By Andrew Gans
and Adam Hetrick
30 Sep 2012

Brandon Coffey
Brandon Coffey
Photo by Carol Rosegg

Woody Harrelson and Frankie Hyman's new comedy Bullet for Adolf, which officially opened in its American premiere Aug. 8 at Off-Broadway's New World Stages and later extended its run to October, closes Sept. 30.

Directed by Harrelson (Academy Award nominee for "The Messenger," "The People vs. Larry Flynt"), performances were originally scheduled to continue through Sept. 9. Despite a lukewarm critical response, producers extended its run to Oct. 21. The production now shutters Sept. 30 following performances at 3 PM and 7 PM.

"Getting to write this play with Frankie, and then watch this amazing cast bring it to life, has been a dream come true," Harrelson said in a previous statement. "Hearing New York audiences laugh each night was the icing on the cake."

The cast includes Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brandon Coffey, David Coomber, Shamika Cotton, Shannon Garland, Lee Osorio, Tyler Jacob Rollinson and Nick Wyman.

"During the summer of 1983, in the sweltering heat of Houston, an unlikely friendship is formed when a couple of mid-western rubes with uncertain futures meet up with a slick New Yorker on the run from his past," according to press notes. "The disappearance of a WWII artifact sets off a chain of events that proves that nothing changes the present like a blast from the past. The characters that populate this hysterical, rapid-fire new comedy by real-life friends Woody Harrelson and Frankie Hyman are based on real people, though the events depicted are fiction and the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent."

"Frankie and I worked construction together in Houston in the summer of 1983," Harrelson said in an earlier statement. "The people we got to know that summer had a profound effect on us and we knew we had to write a play about them. The only problem was our real lives didn’t have much of a plot, so we started embellishing. Now it's about seven-percent history and ninety-three-percent embroidery."

Read the Playbill magazine feature about Harrelson and his new play.

Bullet for Adolf received its world premiere last spring at the Hart House Theatre in Toronto.

The creative team included Dane Laffrey (sets), Kristy Leigh Hall (costumes), Jen Schriever (lights), Brett Jarvis (sound), and Imaginary Media (projections).

Bullet for Adolf was presented by Children at Play.

Tickets, priced $66.50 and $86.50 (premium tickets), are available through Telecharge.com or (212) 239-6200. They can also be purchased at the New World Stages box office (340 West 50th Street).