Boom Town , the world-premiere drama by actor-turned-playwright Jeff Daniels, is booming at the Purple Rose Theatre Company box office in Chelsea, MI, prompting an extension through Dec. 19.
The staging, directed by Daniels, opened Oct. 16 after previews that began Oct. 8 and was to close Nov. 29.
Boom Town is the seventh play written and produced by Daniels at his resident professional theatre, 60 miles west of Detroit. It marks the first time Daniels will direct his own piece. Every staging of his work there has been extended.
Purple Rose managing director Alan Ribant told Playbill On-Line Nov. 18 that three performances were also added to the schedule to meet ticket demand: 7 PM Sundays Nov. 29 & Dec. 13 and 3 PM Wednesday Dec. 16. The additions mean the troupe will perform two shows on those days; usually, two performances occur only Saturdays.
Tickets are $15-$30. The Purple Rose Theatre Company operates in the 119-seat Garage Theatre, a former garage and onetime pizza parlor, at 137 Park St., in Chelsea. Call (734) 475-7902 for tickets. *
The three-character Boom Town is akin to the aggressive, clipped style of David Mamet or Sam Shepard, Purple Rose’s Ribant told Playbill On-Line (Oct. 3). However, Daniels' reputation as a popular playwright in Michigan is based on his rollicking comedies, such as The Vast Difference and Thy Kingdom's Coming.
Boom Town concerns a small-town couple (PRTC artistic director Guy Sanville and actress Sandra Birch) who own a convenience store in a thriving community. A banker (John Lepard) threatens both the business and the marriage.
"We've been saying it's about what happens when love competes with business and small-town politics," Ribant said.
Every season since the theatre's founding in 1991, Daniels' works have been total or near sell-outs during often-extended runs. His comic style might be described as heightened Midwestern comedy: he often punctuates his Midwest-set plays with fantasy sequences or raucous physical humor.
His biggest hit (revived once already), Escanaba in da Moonlight , for example, was set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and its central joke involved hunters and their bombastic flatulence.
In contrast, Ribant said, Boom Town is expected to be violent and recommended for mature audiences only. As in the past, there are extra weeks available for an extension, Ribant said, but it's unclear whether the play's frank content will lure holiday theatregoers.
In the weeks leading up to the Oct. 23 release of his latest film, "Pleasantville," movie actor, playwright and stage director Daniels was in rehearsals staging his Boom Town in his home town of Chelsea.
Meanwhile, New York City's nonprofit Barrow Group has plans to give Daniels his Off-Broadway playwriting debut with an early 1999 staging of Thy Kingdom's Coming , Daniels' satire of conservative politics and Hollywood machismo that was huge hit at the PRTC in 1994.
Barrow Group managing director Nicole Foster told Playbill On-Line (Sept. 28) a verbal agreement exists between Daniels' agent and the Barrow Group (with an outside producer) to stage the comedy sometime after January 1999. Negotiations are ongoing for the rights and for the space, Foster said. The Barrow Group helped launch the New York premiere of Old Wicked Songs in 1996.
Daniels' playwriting agent, Sarah Jane Leigh, of ICM, was out of the office the week of Sept. 28 and not available to confirm word that the Barrow Group was seeking an option on the play for New York this season. PRTC's Ribant confirmed Barrow's intentions.
Purple Rose, named after "The Purple Rose of Cairo," the Woody Allen film that starred Daniels, was founded to give Michigan and Midwestern writers, actors and designers the chance to create mostly new work. Occasionally, non-Midwestern writers have worked there, too. Daniels has yet to perform at his own theatre, where he is listed as executive director.
March saw the world premiere of Book of Days , a commissioned play by Lanford Wilson, a Daniels collaborator from the past. Daniels' name has attracted a wealth of donors and made the PRTC the envy of Michigan's small resident Equity community and the pride of Chelsea, whose best known export prior to Daniels had been Jiffy baking mixes. The PRTC annual budget is $1.1 million.
The folky, unaffected Daniels, who resides in Chelsea with his wife and children when not on film location, is known for New York stage roles in Wilson's Redwood Curtain and Fifth of July and for acting in such films as "Something Wild," "Dumb and Dumber," "Terms of Endearment" and the upcoming "Pleasantville" and "My Favorite Martian."
The rest the 1998-99 PRTC season includes:
The Hole , a world-premiere drama by Wendy Hammond directed by Guy Sanville, Jan. 28-March 20, 1999.
The Big Slam , an "adult comedy" by Bill Corbett, directed by Anthony Caselli, April 8-May 30, 1999.
A comedy to be announced, directed by Randall Godwin. July 1-Aug. 22, 1999.
-- By Kenneth Jones
