This year's Williamstown Theatre Festival is slowly turning into Hollywood East. Ethan Hawke has agreed to star in the festival's new staging of Tennessee Williams' seldom-staged semi-classic, Camino Real. The production will open the summer season, running June 23 to July 4 on the main stage. Nicholas Martin will direct.
Hawke has appeared in such films as "Gattaca," "Before Sunrise" and "Reality Bites." He has occasionally returned to the theatre, starring in the National Actors Theatre's production of The Seagull and Steppenwolf Theatre Company's staging of Buried Child.
Hawke may have also gotten bitten again by the theatre bug from seeing his wife, film star Uma Thurman, take the theatrical plunge a few weeks ago in the Classic Stage Company's updated The Misanthrope.
Hawke won't be the only movie star in Massachusetts this summer. Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar winner for "Shakespeare In Love," is returning to her old stomping grounds. The movie actress will star in Shakespeare's As You Like It. She will play the heroine Rosalind, who -- much like her character in "Shakespeare" -- dressed up as a man in order to snare her love.
Paltrow began her career at Williamstown in the 1981 production of The Greeks. Other Paltrow performances at WTF include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Picnic, The Sweet By and By and The Sea Gull. Paltrow's films include "Emma" and "Sliding Doors." Her mother, actress Blythe Danner, is a mainstay at the Massachusetts summer theatre.
The festival will also feature premieres of new plays by Kenneth Lonergan (This Is Our Youth), John Guare (Lake Hollywood) and Warren Leight (Side Man). Leight will offer The Glimmer Brothers; Guare Chaucer in Love; and Lonergan The Waverly Gallery.
Other highlights of the schedule include Roger Rees starring and directing in a new production of Taming of the Shrew, James Naughton directing Arthur Miller's The Price and hot director Martin (Bosoms and Neglect, Betty's Summer Vacation) piloting two productions.
The season schedule, which runs June 16-Aug. 29, runs as follows:
The Main Stage:
Camino Real (June 23-July 4), Tennessee Williams' expressionistic classic, starring Ethan Hawke directed by Nicholas Martin.
The Taming of the Shrew (July 7-18), directed by Roger Rees (The Misanthrope), who also stars in the production as Petruchio.
A Raisin in the Sun (July 21-Aug. 1), Lorainne Hansberry's classic, directed by Jack Hofsiss (The Elephant Man).
As You Like It (Aug. 4-15), starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Rosalind, director TBA.
The Price (Aug. 18-29), Arthur Miller's play about family loyalty and responsibility, directed by James Naughton (WTF's 1997 Johnny on the Spot).
Nikos Stage:
The Factory Girls (June 16-27), by Frank McGuinness, in a co-production with Long Island's Bay Street Theatre, starring Kate Burton and directed by Nye Heron.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (June 30-July 11), Tom Stoppard's first hit, directed by Darko Tresnjak.
The Glimmer Brothers (July 14-25), a world premiere of Warren Leight's play about two generations of jazz musicians.
Chaucer in Love (July 28-Aug. 8), John Guare's new play about pilgrims who journey to Rome to absolve their sins, directed by Martin, who successfully mounted Guare's Bosoms and Neglect at New York's Signature Theatre Company earlier this year.
The Waverly Gallery (Aug. 11-22), Kenneth Lonergan's new play about an 85-year-old Greenwich Village gallery owner who, while failing mentally, refuses to retire, directed by Scott Ellis (Steel Pier).
WTF will also present Quark Victory (July 22-31), a musical by Robert Reale and Willie Reale, at the Hunter Center for the Performing Arts; and several cabaret acts and play readings.
For information, call (413) 597-3399.
--By Robert Simonson
