LAST CHANCE: What's Closing This Week

By Michael Gioia
05 Dec 2012

Ethan Hawke
Ethan Hawke
Photo by Joan Marcus

Here's Playbill.com's weekly "Last Chance" reminder to catch Broadway, Off-Broadway and world-premiere productions before they take a final bow.

Concluding Dec. 8

A Summer Day (Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre). The American premiere of Jon Fosse's A Summer Day stars stage and film actress Karen Allen. "A visit to an old friend sparks the memory of a visit years earlier and the mysterious disappearance of a loved one," according to Rattlestick notes. "Set in two time periods in the same idyllic house, Summer Day evokes the nostalgia of the end of an affair, capturing love both in the moment and as a distant memory. Acclaimed Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, widely considered to be one of the world's greatest living playwrights, receives an American premiere with this deep meditation on the nature of loss." Visit Rattlestick.org.

Concluding Dec. 9

Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson (Broadway at Neil Simon Theatre). Scandalous, a musical passion project by writer Kathie Lee Gifford, features two-time Tony Award nominee Carolee Carmello in the title role. Here's how the producers characterize the fact-inspired show: "Set in 1920s Los Angeles, holiness collides with Hollywood in this extraordinary tale of one remarkable woman's charismatic rise to fame amidst scandalous love affairs and growing controversy, inevitably ending in her much-publicized fall from grace." The musical also features Candy Buckley, George Hearn, Roz Ryan, Edward Watts and Andrew Samonsky. Visit ScandalousOnBroadway.com.

Ivanov (Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre). Classic Stage Company's new production of Anton Chekhov's Ivanov, a play that the Russian playwright revised throughout his lifetime, stars Tony Award nominee Ethan Hawke in the title role. Directed by Austin Pendleton, the work, translated by Carol Rocamora, also features Joely Richardson, Glenn Fitzgerald, Roberta Maxwell, George Morfogen, Juliet Rylance, Jonathan Marc Sherman and Pendleton as Lebedev (Pendleton replaced Louis Zorich, who took ill). Visit ClassicStage.org.