Theatre legend Elaine Stritch (Company, A Delicate Balance) will open the Bay Street Theatre's 1998 season May 22 in Bob Kingdom's Elsa Edgar. The play promises to hand Stritch one of the more challenging acting assignments of his career. In separate acts, she will play social doyenne Elsa Maxwell and, incredibly, FBI direct
or J. Edgar Hoover. Kingdom starred in his own The Truman Capote Talk Show at the Sag Harbor, Long Island theatre in 1995. Bay Street producer Murphy Davis directs. The show runs through June 7.
In other Bay Street news, Twiggy has been tapped to play famed actress Gertrude Lawrence in the Bay Street Theatre's biographical revue Noel & Gertrude this summer. The show, which will run July 15 to Aug. 2, looks at the relationship between actress Lawrence and playwright and actor Noel Coward. The Coward role has not been cast. Leigh Lawson will direct.
Preceding Noel & Gertie on the Sag Harbor, Long Island, theatre's 1998 schedule is Horton Foote's new play A Coffin in Egypt (June 17-July 5). The one-person play about passion, infidelity and murder will star veteran actress Glynis Johns (A Little Night Music), in her first visit to BST. The director is Leonard Foglia.
No casting has been announced for the Joe Mantello-directed Terrence McNally Jon Robin Baitz collaboration House, which will end the Bay Street season. The play concerns a couple buying a house from another couple. Act one, by Baitz, follows the sellers; act two, by McNally, the buyers. McNally, Mantello and Baitz have all worked at Bay Street before. For tickets and information on Bay Street events call (516) 725-9500.
-- By Robert Simonson
