Hare's Stuff Happens Will Play the Public; Deavere Smith Work Postponed | Playbill

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News Hare's Stuff Happens Will Play the Public; Deavere Smith Work Postponed David Hare’s acclaimed play Stuff Happens — based on the incidents that led to the current war in Iraq — will be mounted in New York in 2006 at Off-Broadway's Public Theater.
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Alex Jennings as George W. Bush in the National Theatre of Great Britain's production of Stuff Happens. Photo by Ivan Kyncl

The Off-Broadway theatre founded by Joe Papp will present the play — in a co-production with Scott Rudin — in spring 2006. Previews will begin March 21, 2006. Rudin previously produced Hare's Broadway productions of Amy's View, The Blue Room, The Judas Kiss and Skylight. Daniel Sullivan, the Tony-winning Proof director, will helm the production. Sullivan is also set to direct Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming production of Rabbit Hole in January 2006.

No casting for Stuff Happens has been announced.

In other Public news, the world premiere of Anna Deavere Smith's scheduled Let Me Down Easy has been moved to the 2006-07 Season "due to an expansion in the scope of the project.  After an initial period of extraordinary interviews in Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa, the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina has led her to encompass New Orleans as a central facet of the work."

The play  focuses on the human body and "its vulnerability to everything from war and disease to admiration and attention. "

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Stuff Happens depicts the run-up to the Iraq War. Hare has been at pains to point out that the show is a history play rather than a documentary, with the secret diplomacy imagined and dramatized. It started life at Britain’s National Theatre with Alex Jennings as George Bush, directed by Nicholas Hytner. As well as Bush and Blair, Hare put such figures as U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blick, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell on stage. The title is taken from a phrase used by Donald Rumsfeld.

Stuff Happens received a New York reading at the Tribeca Theatre Festival in 2004. It was also presented in Los Angeles with a cast that included Keith Carradine and Julian Sands. A new production opened in Sydney, Australia, in July.

 
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