We have the complete cast for “Cloud Nine,” the Caryl Churchill classic being staged Feb. 23 though March 19 at Hartford Stage. The play dramatizes and satirizes changes in the British class system, and society in general, during the 20th century. In the first act, the actors play British colonial subjects in Africa. In the second act, they are residents of London during the Thatcher administration. The key characters are played by different actors — often of different genders — in each act.
In the Africa act, Mark H. Dold (the Yale School of Drama alum and longtime Barrington Stage company member who played C.S. Lewis in the New York production of “Freud’s Last Session”) is patriarchal Colonialist Clive; recent Yale School of Drama grad Tom Pecinka is his wife, Betty; Kate Forbes (Hartford Stage’s “Macbeth”) is their son, Edward; William John Austin (a Brown University grad who has done several shows at Trinity Rep) is the native servant Joshua; Emily Gunyou Halaas (numerous shows at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis) is Betty’s mother, Maud; Sarah Lemp (of the New York and Chicago productions of Mark Roberts’ “The New Country”) is both Ellen the governess and the widow Mrs. Saunders; classically trained pianist Chandler Williams (Broadway’s “Mary Stuart”) is the explorer Harry Bagley; and a ventriloquist’s dummy plays Clive and Betty’s daughter, Victoria.
In the second act, Dold is the 5-year-old girl Cathy; Forbes is Betty; Pecinka is Edward; Halaas is the grown-up Victoria; Williams is Victoria’s husband, Martin; Lemp is Cathy’s mother, Lin; and Austin is Edward’s lover, Gerry. “Cloud Nine” fanatics will note that this follows the double-casting scheme from the play’s original 1979 British production rather than the slightly different arrangement used for subsequent London and New York productions.
The show is directed by Elizabeth Williamson, who has been associate artistic director of Hartford Stage for the past four and a half years but until now has not directed a show there. (She has been busy with dramaturgy, translating and other duties.) Details at hartfordstage.org.
Also In ‘Next to Normal’
We announced last month that Christiane Noll (Broadway’s “Ragtime,” Goodspeed’s “Mack & Mabel”) and David Harris (CT Rep’s “Les Mis,” Goodspeed’s “Anything Goes”) will star in the highly anticipated TheaterWorks production of the musical “Next to Normal,” directed by Rob Ruggiero. Here’s who else is in it: J.D. Daw (who worked with Ruggiero in a St. Louis production of “The Music Man” last summer) as Doctor Madden; Connecticut-born Maya Keleher as Natalie; and Nick Sacks (a member of director/choreographer Jennifer Jancuska’s “nest of artists” The BringAbout) as Henry.
Write Young
The Young Playwrights Festival at Waterford’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center is accepting submissions from local middle and high school students” for its 12th annual event, to be held in mid-May. The selected scripts will be given script-in-hand readings. A press release says “students can expect a rigorous exploration of their work, assistance from professional artists, full rehearsals with their artistic team, and opportunities to revise their play.” The submission deadline is Feb. 28. Details at theoneill.org/professional-development-and-education/ypf.
Lin-Manuel Miranda Update
The esteemed Wesleyan grad, and his “Hamilton” juggernaut, continue to make headlines.
The “original Schuyler Sisters” (Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones from Hamilton’s first Broadway cast) reunited to sing “America the Beautiful” in three-part harmony at the Super Bowl Feb. 5, adding the word “sisterhood” to “brotherhood” in the “crown thy good” portion of the lyrics.
The bestselling concept album “‘Hamilton’ Mixtape” is getting release as an actual old-school cassette tape, albeit with just 12 songs from the 23-track album (previously released on CD, vinyl and digital download).
Several of the original “Hamilton” stars have become celebrities, and now some TV celebrities are joining various productions of the show. Taran Killam, deposed from “Saturday Night Live” last year, is now playing King George in the Broadway production, and variety show/game show host Wayne Brady took over the role of Aaron Burr in the Chicago production of the show earlier this month.
The Disney animated feature “Moana,” which received Oscar nominations for Best Animated Film and Best Song (the Miranda-penned “How Far I’ll Go”) released a “sing-along” version of its soundtrack album Jan. 27.
At the end of January, the Broadway “Hamilton” doubled the number of $10 front-row tickets that are available through a digital lottery, found at lottery.broadwaydirect.com/show/hamilton. The discount tickets don’t make a dent in the show’s profits: “Hamilton” was the top-grossing Broadway show of 2016.
Taccone Departs
The Berkeley Repertory Theatre is clear across the country from the Yale Repertory Theatre, but the two were closely connected thanks to Tony Taccone, who announced that he will be leaving the California-based theater in 2019 at the conclusion of its 50th anniversary season. Berkeley Rep and Yale Rep have demonstrated strikingly similar tastes and creative goals over the years, co-producing works by Tony Kushner (“Brundibar”), Sarah Ruhl (“Three Sisters”), Marcus Gardley (“The House That Will Not Stand”), Dario Fo (“The Accidental Death of an Anarchist”) and Rinne Groff (“Compulsion”), among others. Taccone has been artistic director of Berkeley Rep since 1997. New York hits that were developed under his watch include the musicals “American Idiot” and “Amelie.” Taccone directed Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show, “Wishful Drinking,” which played Hartford Stage in 2008.
‘Lefty’ Gets ‘Severance’
Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s production of Clifford Odets’ legendary political play “Waiting for Lefty” will also feature “Severance,” a new one-act “curtain closer” by recent UConn graduate Levi Alpert. The show runs Feb. 23 through March 5. In a statement, director Michael Bradford explains that “in the original 1935 production of ‘Waiting For Lefty,’ Odets was asked to write a ‘curtain raiser’ to create a full night of theatre. I asked Levi to consider writing a ‘curtain closer’ that brought us a little closer to our present lives as a way to look at how wonderfully far and sadly how little we have ‘traveled.'”
“Waiting for Lefty,” a series of dramatic vignettes revolving around a threatened taxi-driver strike in Depression-era New York City, is the first production Bradford has directed since being named artistic director of CT Rep last year. The cast consists of professional New York actors Michael Lewis and Robin Haynes, UConn graduate students Michael Bobenhausen, Darren Brown, Natalia Cuevas, Jeffry DeSisto, Sam Kebede, Curtis Longfellow, Emile Saba, and Meredith Saran, and UConn undergrads Mikaila Baca-Dorian, Aaron Bantum, Rebekah Berger, Shavana Clarke, Derrick Holmes, Aiden Marchetti, Gavin McNicholl, Scott Redmond, Ben Senkowski, Ryan Shea and Jacob Wright. Details at 860-486-2113, crt.uconn.edu.
