Kevin Chamberlin (The Seussical and Encores' Zeigfeld Follies of 1936) and Bob Stillman (The Last Session, Grand Hotel) have been added to the cast of New York Theatre Workshop's second show of the season -- the tentatively titled, Dirty Blonde by Claudia (Blown Sideways Through Life) Shear.
James Lapine will helm the production with Shear playing the lead role of showbiz legend, Mae West. Lapine, known for his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim -- Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George -- directed the acclaimed Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, starring Natalie Portman.
Experimental Belgian director, Ivo Van Hove will begin NYTW's 1999-00 season with his production of A Streetcar Named Desire. A hit at his Amsterdam based company, Het Zuidelijk Toneel, Streetcar will feature an American cast at NYTW, including Elizabeth Marvel as Blanche, Saida Arrika Ekuloma as Eunice, Bruce McKenzie as Stanley, Jenny Bacon as Stella, Christopher Evan Welch as Mitch.
No other shows are on NYTW's official roster, though the theatre has a short list of plays that are "under consideration" for the Spring.
They include: • Tony (Angels in America) Kushner's latest, Home Body/Kabul. The play, currently receiving its world premiere in London, is a monologue wherein a restless upper-class British housewife imagines herself being in Afghanistan. Former artistic director of NYC's Classic Stage Company David Esbjornson is currently helming the world premiere. Esbjornson also directed the world premiere of Kushner's Angels in America.
• Jean Marie Bisset's play What You Get and What You Expect.
• Everything That Rises Must Converge, adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod from Flannery O'Connor's short stories. Coonroddirected a workshop of Shakespeare's rarely-performed drama, King John, this June at New York's Theatre for a New Audience. Her most high-profile assignment to date has probably been the mounting of Henry IV, parts I, II and III. The three plays were packaged as two evenings and ran in repertory at the Public Theater in late 1996. The cast included such Downtown presences as Stephen Skybell, Tom Nelis and Jan Leslie Harding -- many of them veterans of Arden Party, the troupe Coonrod founded in 1987. Arden Party productions Coonrod has directed include Ubu Roi, Lear, Victor and Emperor of the Moon.
