Randy Newman's musical Faust, has suffered another setback. The star-crossed show, which has had several productions over the past few years but failed to gain any momentum, looked like it might come back to life earlier this year when the Kennedy Center announced an all-new mounting of the work. But that show has now been postponed until next season, the Kennedy Center reported. No reason was given.
Faust has seen several incarnations at such venues as La Jolla Playhouse, in 1995, and the Goodman Theatre, in 1996. Michael Greif directed both productions. No talent had been attached to the Washington, D.C., production.
Also removed from the Kennedy Center's 1999-2000 season was Electra, the Zoe Wanamaker staging of the Greek classic which played on Broadway last season. The visit was scheduled for April 2000, with Wanamaker expected to repeat her performance in the title role. The cancellation was reportedly due to Wanamaker's sudden unavailability for the project.
Scheduled in Electra's place is Wit, the Pulitzer Prize winning Margaret Edson play. It will run Feb. 29-March 26, 2000. It is not clear whether Kathleen Chalfant, who created the play's central role of a cancer-riddled English professor, will star in the production.
Still on the 1999-2000 roster are the new Alain Boublil and Claude Michel Schonberg tuner Martin Guerre and A Moon for the Misbegotten starring Cherry Jones. November will see a new production of Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for Misbegotten starring Cherry Jones and directed by Gerald Gutierrez. The revival, earlier promised for Broadway in late 1999, will head to New York in mid-December. The Kennedy Center run will be Nov. 2-Dec. 5.
The long-in-development British musical Martin Guerre will reach the Kennedy Center in December, after making its American debut at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theatre on Sept. 28. Dates are Dec. 23-Jan. 16, 2000. A Broadway bow is anticipated for March 2000.
Meanwhile, there are still no Washington plans for Stephen Sondheim's new musical Wise Guys, which the Kennedy Center commissioned years ago and was last heard to be headed for Broadway in the fall of 1999. Kennedy Center president Lawrence J. Wilker told the Washington Post the musical would be workshopped at the center in September and eventually land on one of its stages. There are currently two vacant slots in the Kennedy Center line-up.
Other productions scheduled for the center include:
*Art, Apr. 11-May 14, 2000, possibly starring Judd Hirsch.
*The Whiteheaded Boy, a comedy by Irish playwright Lennox Robinson, Sept. 14-23, 1999.
*Milestones, by Mandla Langa and Hugh Masakela, in October.
*Lady Windermere's Fan, in a production by Ireland's Gate Theatre, June 13-July 9, 2000.
-- By Robert Simonson
