Since the first Glengarry, the press agent Richards has added producing to his job duties. Wearing the latter hat, he has presented the 2000 revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man and the 2003 presentation of Matthew Barber's Enchanted April. Not only did producing Glengarry Glen Ross provide him with a bit of nostalgia, it also earned the hyphenate his third Tony Award nomination.
"Somebody else was going to revive it but that did not happen," recalled Richards about the show's return to Broadway. "I called the agent out of the blue and I asked what's happening with Glengarry Glen Ross, he said `Well, the rights just lapsed two weeks ago.' And I said ' I want them.' I felt like the guys in the play; I said `Put me on the board.'"
Richards then enlisted the help of two-time Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello — who collects his third consecutive Best Director nomination to his resume (after wins for Take Me Out and Assassins) with his work on the Best Revival of a Play nominee.
Next came selecting the starry new cast that includes three Tony Award nominees in the Best Featured Actor in a Play category — Broadway newcomer Gordon Clapp, young stage stalwart Liev Schreiber and veteran of the boards Alan Alda.
Those three actors—as well as three others (Jeffrey Tambor, Frederick Weller and Tom Wopat) of the seven-man ensemble that spew Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning (but not Tony Award-winning) dialogue—are all listed above the title in the Playbill. When making decisions about Tony eligibility in leading categories, above-the-title status is the standard which the Tony Administration Committee tends to recognize. However, the decision came down that all the cast would be considered as featured actors. "Liev [Schreiber] was very generous, because everyone is billed above the title and Liev said 'I would love not to take away from Alan [Alda's performance], so will you petition for me to be in the supporting category," explained Richards. "Which I thought was very generous and we did and then they made the decision [to put Alda in the featured category] and that's fine."
Another noticeable change in the theatre scene since the original production that the producer-press agent noted (specifically to this reporter) is the means by which news and production details are obtained. "There was no internet. All the information that you secured was in the print media. Nowadays everybody gets it first on the internet."
