Double Tony Award-winner Julie Taymor's next show, The Green Bird, will begin box office sales March 6. Taymor, the creative force behind Disney's Broadway hit, The Lion King, and her memorable Off-Broadway breakthrough, Juan Darien, has created the masks and puppets for Green Bird in addition to directing the show.
Rehearsals for the show began Feb. 14. Previews for The Green Bird begin April 1 at the Cort Theatre. The show opens April 18.
Taymor's second New York production of The Green Bird, the show is also her first stage effort since The Lion King. Her first production of The Green Bird debuted to critical acclaim at Off-Broadway's New Victory Theatre in spring 1996. That Theatre for a New Audience production played just 15 performances and garnered Derek Smith an Obie award for acting. Following the New Victory Theatre's limited engagement, Green Bird ran successfully at the La Jolla Playhouse.
Included in the current cast are Didi Conn, Ned Eisenberg, Sebastian Roché, Reg E. Cathy, Edward Hibbert, Katie MacNichol, Kristine Nielsen, Sophia Salguero, Derek Smith, Bruce Turk, Erico Villanueva and Andrew Weems. (Featured in the 1996 production of Green Bird were Trellis Stepter, Priscilla Shanks, Lee Lewis, Weems, Conn, Eisenberg, Myriam Cyr, Roche, Turk, Nielsen, and Villanueva.)
The Green Bird will feature music by Taymor's long time partner and collaborator, composer Elliot Goldenthal. Production sources describe the story -- about a king who longs for his lost wife, and brother-and-sister twins searching for their true identities -- as a "wicked comedy of outrageous characters in which fantasy and the truest love meet in a place unlike any ever seen." Taymor has said The Green Bird has a "wonderful grotesquery and poetry to it -- an edgy bawdiness." Green Bird was written by Italian playwright Gozzi in the 18th century.
Translated by Albert Bermel & Ted Emery, the Broadway production of The Green Bird opens April 18. Producers for the show are Ostar Enterprises and Theatre for a New Audience (where Jeffrey Horowitz is the artistic director) as well as Nina Lannan.
The production team for Green Bird comprises scenic designer Christine Jones, costume designer Constance Hoffman and lighting designer Donald Holder (The Lion King).
Taymor's breakthrough collaboration with Elliot Goldenthal,Juan Darien, was produced Off-Broadway in 1988. That production won both Taymor and Goldenthal Obie Awards. The show also ran at Lincoln Center Theater in 1996 and was nominated for five Tony Awards.
Tickets run $45 - $75. Green Bird will run at Broadway's Cort Theatre, located at 138 West 48th Street. For information and tickets call Telecharge at (212) 239-6200 or visit www.telecharge.com or the Cort Theatre box office.
