By Robert Simonson
09 Apr 2006

Phylicia Rashad in Bernarda Alba.
photo by Paul Kolnik

Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Michael John LaChiusa’s new musical Bernarda Alba will end its limited run at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on April 9.

The show opened on March 6 after previews from Feb. 11.

Ghostlight Records recorded the show on March 27. Ghostlight will release the CD in late spring.

Bernarda Alba, based on Federico Garcia Lorca's famous work, stars Yolande Bavan, Judith Blazer, Candy Buckley, Nikki M. James, Sally Murphy, Phylicia Rashad, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Saundra Santiago, Laura Shoop and Nancy Ticotin are in the cast. Direction and choreography are by Graciela Daniele.

Bernarda Alba is the story of "a newly-widowed mother (Rashad), who enforces her iron will on her large household, only to have her daughters (James, Murphy, Rubin-Vega and Santiago) overwhelm her tyranny." The subject matter is of the serious, literary sort that LaChiusa often favors. In the past, he has drawn inspiration from the work of Schnitzler, Euripides, Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Gabriel García Márquez.

LaChiusa's Hello, Again and Marie Christine were produced at the nonprofit LCT. Daniele has directed such LCT shows as LaChiusa's Marie Christine and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, as well as such Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens works as Once on This Island and the recent Dessa Rose.