The last time Ah, Wilderness! was on Broadway (1988), it was directed by Arvin Brown and starred Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick. Eugene O'Neill's most uncharacteristically warm and sweet comedy is back on the Great White Way, opens Mar. 19 at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre, in a production staged by Daniel Sullivan.
Debra Monk (Steel Pier) and Craig T. Nelson (filmdom's Poltergeist, TV's "Coach") star in this 1933 look at an idealized American family (often described as the other side of Long Day's Journey Into Night). Monk's other credits include the Roundabout revival of Company and NY Theatre Workshop's A Narrow Bed in 1987.
Also in the cast at Lincoln Center's Vivan Beaumont Theatre are Leslie Lyles, (Life During Wartime), Leo Burmester, Dylan Chalfy, Jack Davidson, Siobhan Dunne, Jenna Lamia, Steven Marcus, Tracy Middendorf, Mark Rosenthal, James Murtaugh, Rufus H. Read, Jenn Thompson, and Sam Trammell (My Night With Reg).
Designing the show are Dunya Ramicova (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting) and Thomas Lynch (set). Stanley Silverman has composed the underscoring.
Director Sullivan stepped down in May as artistic director of Seattle Rep after 17 years at the venue. A three-time Tony-nominated director, Sullivan is best known to theatregoers beyond Seattle as director of Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig, his own Inspecting Carol, and Herb Gardner's Conversations With My Father. Other plays by Eugene O'Neill include Long Day's Journey Into Night, Beyond The Horizon and The Hairy Ape.
Ah, Wilderness! opens March 19 for a run to May 3 at the Beaumont, 150 West 65th St. For tickets call (212) 239-6200.
Following O'Neill at the Beaumont will be. . . William Shakespeare. Nicholas Hytner, of Carousel renown, will direct the comedy Twelfth Night, with rehearsals starting in early May. Designing the show will be Bob Crowley (sets), Natasha Katz (lighting) and Catherine Zuber (costumes). Previews are set for June 18, for an opening July 13. Spokesperson Philip Rinaldi anticipates a run through the end of August.
Twelfth Night will be a Lincoln Center Theatre production in association with the annual, three-week Lincoln Center Festival.
