Veteran actor Remak Ramsay has been cast opposite five-time Tony winner Julie Harris in Scent of the Roses, now scheduled to start previews Nov. 30 at Broadway's Belasco Theatre. According to producer Arthur Cantor's office, the show's official opening date has been changed from Dec. 1 to Dec. 12.
A pre-Broadway run will be held at the Helen Hayes Theatre in Nyack, NY, Oct. 30-Nov. 21 (opening Nov. 4). Though technically a separate production from the Broadway staging, the upstate New York mounting will feature the same set and nine-person cast.
Rehearsals for Roses, by South African playwright Lisette Lecat Ross, begin in late September. The Broadway production will be an open run. Full casting is expected shortly. Scent of the Roses was first produced with Harris at Seattle's A Contemporary Theatre, July-Aug. 1998. ACT artistic director Gordon Edelstein staged the show, and he'll do so again for the New York mounting. The Seattle design team of Thomas Lynch (set), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting) and John Gromada (sound, music) will also design the New York production.
Five-time Tony winner (and ten-time nominee) Harris recreates her role as Annalise Morant, a South African woman whose children wish her to part with her most cherished possession: a mysterious and valuable painting. The drama unfolds as we discover what special significance the artist and the painting hold for Annalise.
Harris was recently in Chicago for an extended run of the play Winter. Prior to that, she toured opposite Charles Durning in the National Actors Theatre's The Gin Game. Ramsay's credits include Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1979) and Roundabout Theatre's 1980 revival of The Winslow Boy. For several months after announcing the project, producer Cantor debated whether to bring the play to Broadway of Off-Broadway, owing to the scarcity of Broadway houses and the financing required for a Broadway production. Ultimately, he and co-producer Carol Ostrow decided on Broadway, with a capitalization of $1,250,000. "It's not easy to raise the money now," said veteran producer Cantor. "The high cost of production is more than a metaphor. The highest I'd ever raised previously was three quarters of a million for A Little Family Business with Angela Lansbury. Back then, units were $4-5,000 apiece; now they're $20-30,000. That's a lot."
As for the play itself, Cantor said, "I know the fashion now is to bring in all these plays from London, but this is an English kind of play. I can see it doing very well in the West End. In fact, if it does well here, it'll go to London. I would think they'd love her."
Other plays by Lecat Ross include Moment of Truth and Pluperfect Subjunctives.
Producer Cantor's credits include The Tenth Man and All The Way Home, as well as Off-Broadway's Beau Jest and A Room of One's Own.
-- By David Lefkowitz
