Alhadeff, Koenig, Beck, Smith, Jones and Harris Invited to Off-Broadway's Cocktail Party | Playbill

Related Articles
News Alhadeff, Koenig, Beck, Smith, Jones and Harris Invited to Off-Broadway's Cocktail Party Complete casting has been announced for the TACT/The Actors Company Theatre Off-Broadway revival of T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, featuring TACT co-artistic directors Cynthia Harris and Simon Jones, under the direction of their co-artistic director Scott Alan Evans.
//assets.playbill.com/editorial/ded3c97fd1087ea2665632deaa544fa1-thecocktailpartypre200.jpg
The Cocktail Party stars Cynthia Harris, Simon Jones and Jack Koenig Photo by Stephen Kunken

Joining the previously announced Harris and Jones for the rare New York City revival of the play (set for March 7-April 10 at the Beckett Theatre) will be TACT members Mark Alhadeff and Jack Koenig and guest artists Jeremy Beck, Ben Beckley, Lauren English, Erika Rolfsrud and Celia Smith.

TACT is billing the presentation as the 60th anniversary production of the "profound exploration of self-deception and redemption." Opening night is March 17.

The Cocktail Party was first produced in 1949. In the play, "Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne are throwing a party at their fashionable London flat. The guests arrive only to discover that their hostess is nowhere to be found and a rather strange man [played by Jones], unknown to all, acts right at home. Ruthless, compassionate and funny, this 'Cocktail Party' embodies the day-to-day struggles of domestic life while turning the classic 'drawing room comedy' on its head."

TACT is "dedicated to presenting neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit."

The creative team is comprised of Andrew Lieberman & Laura Jellinek (sets), David Toser (costumes), Aaron Copp (lights), Jill BC Du Boff & Daniel Kluger (sound), Joseph Trapanese (original music) and Lily Fairbanks (properties). Meredith Dixon is production stage manager. According to TACT notes, "After its debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949 with Alec Guinness in the role of the unidentified guest, The Cocktail Party premiered on Broadway on Jan. 21, 1950, at the Henry Miller's Theatre and ran for 409 performances." The Broadway run starred Guinness as the mysterious stranger. It received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play. The play also ran in London with Rex Harrison as the mysterious guest. A revival opened on Broadway in fall 1968 at the Lyceum Theatre and ran for 44 performances. The Chamberlaynes were played by Brian Bedford and Frances Sternhagen. Guinness returned to the role of the "uninvited guest" at the Chichester Festival under his own direction in 1968, taking the production to London later in the year.

Eliot was an American-born English poet, playwright and literary critic. His first notable publication, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915, is regarded as a masterpiece of the modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language: "Gerontion" (1920), "The Waste Land" (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" (1939) and "Four Quartets" (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Order of Merit in 1948.

Theatre Row's Beckett Theatre is at 410 W. 42nd Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

The Cocktail Party will play Monday, Wednesday–Friday at 7:30 PM; Saturday at 2 PM & 8 PM; Sunday at 3 PM. Tickets are $36.25-$56.25 and are available 24/7 through Ticket Central www.ticketcentral.com or noon–8 PM daily at (212) 279-4200.

Visit www.tactnyc.org.

 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!