The popular two-actor Off-Broadway production featuring Martin Rayner as Freud and Mark H. Dold as Lewis had to close Nov. 28 at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater on the Upper West Side due to a previous December booking. It played 147 performances and 15 previews.
On Nov. 29, producers Carolyn Rossi Copeland, Robert Stillman and Jack Thomas announced the 2011 resurrection of director Tyler Marchant's staging.
The Off-Broadway premiere engagement of Freud's Last Session opened on July 22, 2010, after previews from July 9 and had sellout performances and stirred conversation. The show inaugurated the renovated Deane Little Theater, in the YMCA at 10 West 64th Street (at Central Park West).
"After the initial run continued to play to sellout houses in its final weeks, the producers made the decision to reopen the play as soon as the theatre would be once again available in January," according to a statement.
The play has Lewis visiting Dr. Freud in his London consulting room on the eve of World War II, in September 1939. They talk about sex, God, war, love, spirituality and mortality. Freud would take his own life weeks later. St. Germain (Ears on a Beatle, Camping With Henry and Tom, The Gifts of the Magi, Out of Gas on Lover's Leap and Forgiving Typhoid Mary) based this play on the bestselling book "The Question of God" by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.
Video highlights from Freud's Last Session:
Freud's Last Session had its world premiere at Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts in June 2009, where it was extended twice and brought back by popular demand for two subsequent encore engagements. It holds the record as the longest-running show in Barrington Stage’s history.
Dold appeared on Broadway in Absurd Person Singular, and his Off-Broadway credits include Shockheaded Peter, Comic Potential, Race, The Winter's Tale, Othello, The Seagull, Romeo and Juliet, Spread Eagle and Timon of Athens.
Rayner's Broadway credits include The Invention of Love and Sixteen Wounded. His Off-Broadway appearances include Travels with My Aunt, Gates of Gold, Henry V and Kit Marlowe. His favorite regional roles were at Yale Rep (Underground and You Never Can Tell); McCarter (Loot); American Repertory Theater (King Lear and When We Dead Awaken); Wilma (The Invention of Love and The Magic Fire). His TV credits include Dr. Chaotica on "Star Trek: Voyager," plus "Frasier" and "Benjamin Franklin."
Scenic design for Freud's Last Session is by Brian Prather, with costume design by Mark Mariani, lighting design by Clifton Taylor and sound design by Beth Lake.
The performance schedule for the return of Freud's Last Session will be Tuesdays at 7 PM, Wednesday through Friday evenings at 8 PM, Saturdays at 2 & 8 PM, and Sundays at 3 & 7 PM.
Tickets are $65 and are available by calling (866) 811-4111 or through www.FreudsLastSession.com.
[AUDIO-LEFT] A limited number of $20 Student Rush tickets (cash only, with valid student ID) will be available at the box office beginning three hours prior to each performance.
For more information, visit www.FreudsLastSession.com.
