Tresnjak To The Disco
Last week, Hartford Stage announced that Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak will be leaving the theater at the end of the 2018-19 season. Soon after, one of Tresnjak’s several upcoming New York directing projects came to light. He’s replacing Trip Cullman as the director of the new musical “This Ain’t No Disco” at the Atlantic Theater Company, which has pushed back the show’s first performance a few weeks to June 29 due to the change. (Cullman, an esteemed alum of the Yale School of Drama, apparently had scheduling conflicts.)
Set in 1979 New York City, “This Ain’t No Disco” is the long-awaited new show from Stephen Trask, Peter Yanowitz and Rick Elice. Trask, who wrote the music and lyrics for “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” grew up in the New London area, attended Wesleyan University and was living in New Haven when “Hedwig” had its initial off Broadway success in 1998.
Tresnjak is slated to make his Metropolitan Opera directing debut with “Samson et Dalila” in September. He is also readying national and international tours of his Broadway hit “Anastasia,” which premiered at Hartford Stage in 2016.
Hartford Stage’s 2018-19 season has yet to be announced. Tresnjak is directing the final show of this season, Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes,” at the theater May 17 through June 10.
From Yale To Juilliard
Evan Yionoulis, who has been on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama since 1997, including as chairman of its acting program, is leaving so she can become the new director of the drama division at Juilliard.
Yionoulis was also a resident director at Yale Repertory Theatre. I’ll miss her work, which always has a raw, visceral theatricality. Two of her most memorable shows were her intense, violent production of George F. Walker’s “Heaven”; and her fabulous, freeing romp though Carlo Gozzi’s “The King Stag,” (which she co-adapted with her brother, composer Mike Yionoulis, and YSD Dramaturgy chair Catherine Sheehy). Her most recent Rep show was Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” with much crossgender casting, in 2016.
Yionoulis has also directed regularly in New York, including premieres of plays by Adrienne Kennedy and Richard Greenberg.
‘Revisionist,’ ‘Fantasticks’
Playhouse on Park has announced the cast for “The Revisionist,” playing at the West Hartford theater April 11 to 29. The comic drama by film actor Jesse Eisenberg concerns a young American writer reconnecting with his elderly cousin, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Poland. Carl Howell, from the national tour of “Peter and the Starcatcher” that played The Bushnell in 2014, will play David, Cecelia Riddett will be Maria and Sebastian Buczyk is the vodka-swigging Polish taxi driver Zenon. Details at playhouseonpark.org
It was already known that the season-opening production of “The Fantasticks” at the Ivoryton Playhouse, March 21 through April 8, would star David Pittsinger, who’s appeared at the theater previously in “South Pacific” and “Man of La Mancha.” Here’s who else is in it: Pittsinger’s wife, operatic soprano Patricia Schuman as Hucklebee; Carly Callahan (from the theater’s “Playhouse on the Shore” concert series) as Bellomy; Ivoryton Playhouse regular R. Bruce Connelly as Henry, William Clark (“I Hate Musicals — The Musical”) as Mortimer, Kimberly Immanuel (who was in the off Broadway revival of “The Fantasticks” in 2016-17) as Luisa, Ryan Bloomquist (“All Shook Up” at the playhouse in 2014) and Cory Candelet (from the ensemble of “Saturday Night Fever” at Ivoryton this past summer) as The Mute. The show’s directed and choreographed by Brian Feehan.
“The Fantasticks” is the longest-running musical in theater history. Its composer Harvey Schmidt died earlier this month, at the age of 88. Details of “The Fantasticks” at Ivoryton Playhouse are at ivorytonplayhouse.org.
Windham-Campbell Winners
Just as Yale Rep was in rehearsals to stage her “Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3,” Suzan-Lori Parks was awarded one of Yale University’s 2018 Windham-Campbell Prizes. The other dramatist among this year’s eight recipients is Lucas Hnath, whose Broadway hit “A Doll’s House, Part 2” is scheduled to be part of Long Wharf Theatre’s 2018-19 season. The stated mission of the Windham-Campbell Prize is to “call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.” The prize comes with a no-strings $165,000 cash award. Some of the previous playwrights who’ve won the Windham-Campbell Prize are Tarell Alvin McCraney, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Kia Corthron and Naomi Wallace.
A Stunning Bushnell Season
In case you missed it, The Bushnell announced its 2018-19 season on March 12. The modest, no-big-deal line-up includes the longest running play currently on Broadway “The Play That Goes Wrong” (Sept. 25 to 30), Bartlett Sher’s hit revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” (Nov. 6 to 11), “Hamilton” Dec. 11 to 30, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Feb. 19 to 24, “Rent” March 12 to 17, “Come From Away” April 30 through May 5 (which would be the big excitement of the season were it not for you-know-what) and the endearing, enduring hit “Waitress” June 18 to 23.
Seriously, this is a stunning subscription season of current and recent Broadway hits. I’m especially excited to see how a show like “The Play That Goes Wrong” will adapt its smashing (and smashed-up) set for touring.
Also coming to The Bushnell, but not as part of the main Broadway Series subscription: “The Lion King” Aug. 1 to 19, “Cats” Jan. 29 through Feb. 3, “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” March 26 to 31 and “The Sound of Music” May 17 to 19. The “Rent” and “Sound of Music” tours have both already played the Shubert in New Haven and the Palace in Waterbury. The first national tour of “Beautiful” was at The Bushnell in January 2017.
Details of The Bushnell’s season are at bushnell.org.
