Shirley Knight, Alison Fraser, Sam Underwood Star in In Masks Outrageous and Austere, Starting April 6 | Playbill

Related Articles
News Shirley Knight, Alison Fraser, Sam Underwood Star in In Masks Outrageous and Austere, Starting April 6 Producers Victor Syrmis, Carl Rumbaugh and Susan Batson, along with Culture Project (Allan Buchman, artistic director) present the world premiere of In Masks Outrageous and Austere, the final full-length play from Pulitzer Prize winner Tennessee Williams, beginning April 6 at Culture Project at 45 Bleecker (at Lafayette Street).

//assets.playbill.com/editorial/36cfe7cfbcecaa4c3b5db4bc37a18288-masks200.jpg
Shirley Knight and Alison Fraser Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images

Directed by David Schweizer, the production will officially open April 16. Performances continue through May 26.

The cast is headed by Tony winner Shirley Knight, who plays the role of Babe Foxworth, with Scot Charles Anderson, Kaolin Bass, Robert Beitzel, Connor Buckley, Alison Fraser, Christopher Halladay, Ward Horton, Jonathan Kim, Jermaine Miles, Pamela Shaw and Sam Underwood.

With In Masks Outrageous and Austere, Tennessee Williams, according to Culture Project, continues to "explore the passionate obsessions that made him famous in the early masterworks —the impenetrability of the human heart, the futility and hypocrisy of denying or displacing physical attraction, the power of love and its tyranny—while employing the dramaturgical freedom and aesthetic daring he discovered in his later plays. And all of this he does with the provocative wit and lyricism that was his hallmark."

"Masks is a sublimely haunting piece of theater and feels almost uncanny in its expressiveness as Tennessee's farewell piece,” added director Schweizer. "There are utterly surprising, surreal theatrical gestures here, but also a deeply rooted, passionate sense of yearning that only he can evoke in the theatre. I knew Tennessee when I was a young man and he was exactly the age that I am now, and I feel privileged to bring this astonishing work in all of its explosive theatricality, to the stage."

The creative team comprises Jim Noone (set design), Gabriel Berry (costume design), Alexander V. Nichols (lighting design), Dan Moses Schreier (sound design), Darrel Maloney (projections & visual effects) and Joe E. Jeffreys (dramaturg). Shirley Knight won a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play for Kennedy's Children and was nominated for a Best Actress Tony for The Young Man From Atlanta. She was Oscar-nominated for "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" and "Sweet Bird of Youth."

Tickets are $75 for Tuesday-Friday performances and $85 for Saturday and Sunday performances. They may be obtained by calling (866) 811-4111 or by visiting www.cultureproject.org.

//assets.playbill.com/editorial/0c24feac845e76da53d1fcb47670e768-masks460.jpg
The cast Photo by John Lamparski/WireImage
 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!