‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ Extended; LGBT Night At Hartford Stage

Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman sat Wednesday on the stage of the Yale University Theatre, where their musical “Assassins” is playing, and spoke almost exclusively about that one show for 90 minutes. The talk wasn’t announced to the general public but the 620-seat theater was packed with Yale students and faculty, Yale Repertory Theatre subscribers and this lucky journalist.

Only Weidman had seen the Yale Rep production of “Assassins.” Sondheim hadn’t seen it, and interrupted work sessions on his latest musical to be at the talk. “I should not be here,” he joked.

Some highlights:

Weidman was at Yale Law School when he decided not to be a lawyer, and started writing a play instead. That play became a musical, “Pacific Overtures,” which is how he first collaborated with Sondheim.

Weidman has a dream project he’s been unable to interest Sondheim in: a musical based on the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, which the writer describes as “the beginning of the end of the world.”

Originally, Sondheim says, “Assassins” was going to “deal with assassinations dating back to Julius Caesar and including Citizen Marat and Harvey Milk.”

When he composes, Sondheim says “I become the actor playing a part. That’s how I enter the song.”

Both men suggested that the original script of “Assassins,” which had a critically reviled premiere at Playwrights Horizon off-Broadway in 1990, is “very close” to what the Yale Rep is currently staging. “This was the show we wanted to write,” Weidman said. It was a “surreal experience,” then, when the 2014 Broadway production of “Assassins” won five Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical.

Sondheim tried for years to “woo” the playwright Peter Shaffer (“Equus,” “Amadeus”) into writing a musical with him, but Shaffer would tell him “You’d have all the fun.”

Weidman and Sondheim lambasted directors who feel they can “fix” shows like “Assassins” with overbearing concepts. A director is going to have a “vision,” Sondheim deadpanned, using air quotes, as the audience exploded in laughter. “The three shows Stephen and I have written are odd,” Weidman said. “You want them to be done accurately.” At the same time, Sondheim praised director John Doyle’s maverick productions of “Sweeney Todd” and “Road Show.”

Sondheim called his mentor Oscar Hammerstein Jr. “an experimental playwright and everything that implies — he was as experimental as Ionesco.”

Asked about the relevance of “Assassins,” Sondheim said “John is a political playwright. The three shows we wrote were a trilogy of political plays.” Weidman added that “one of the things I wanted to discover, seeing this production, was what it was like post-Trump.”

‘Long Day’ Gets Longer

The Flock Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” staged in the same Monte Cristo Cottage sitting room where the classic autobiographical drama is set, sold out all its April performances. Extra performances on May 6, 7, 13 and 14 have been added.

Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, where O’Neill spent many summers in his youth, is now a National Historic Landmark overseen by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford. This is not the first time “Long Day’s Journey” has been performed there; a reading of the play was held in 2001 starring Brian Dennehy as James Tyrone Sr. (a character based on the playwright’s dad James O’Neill). Details on the Flock Theatre production (which is fully staged, with costumes and everything) are at 860-443-3119, flocktheatre.org.

In other O’Neill-ish news, the Yale School of Drama has announced the three plays that will be part of its 12th annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays, May 5 to 13. The festival, which offers full productions of full-length works by soon-to-graduate YSD playwrights, is named for Eugene O’Neill’s widow Carlotta Monterey and is partially supported by the royalties earned by the Yale University Press edition of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

The 2017 plays are “The Hour of Great Mercy” by Miranda Rose Hall, directed by Kevin Hourigan, “Everything That Never Happened” by Sarah B. Mantell, directed by Jesse Rasmussen and “If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must a Muhfucka — an understanding of a West African folktale” by Tori Sampson, directed by Elizabeth Dinkova.

Tarell Alvin McCraney and Amy Herzog are among the now-famous playwrights who had plays in the Carlotta Festival when they were students. Details at drama.yale.edu/carlotta.

Stormy Romances

The Stratford Shakespeare Academy has announced the two shows in its 2017 summer season: “Measure for Measure” directed by the academy’s Artistic Director Brian McManamon and “The Tempest” directed by Jessi D. Hill. Performances are July 29 through Aug. 6. The academy is situated on the grounds of the historic (albeit long-shuttered) American Shakespeare Festival Theater in Stratford.

McManamon has been busy this past year as an actor, playing the rubber-skinned Clayface on TV’s “Gotham.” He must have a flexible schedule. Details at shakespeareacademystratford.org.

The Absolute Brightness Of James Lecesne

You’ve seen James Lecesne voicing multiple characters in his one-man show “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey” at Hartford Stage. On April 5, at 6 p.m., you can see Lecesne be himself. He’s the guest of honor at the theater’s “LGBT Night Out,” held in the Hartford Stage lobby (50 Church St., Hartford) before to the 7:30 p.m. performance of “Absolute Brightness.”

Besides being a playwright, novelist and actor (whose previous Hartford Stage appearances include “The Mystery of Irma Vep” and “I Am My Own Wife”), Lecesne co-founded The Trevor Project, a 24/7 lifeline for LGBT youth.

The “Night Out” event is co-hosted by the Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Members of True Colors and the Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective will also be there. Details at hartfordstage.org.

Reading And Singing ‘Cowboy Bob’ And ‘Gumbo’

The Yale Institute for Music Theater announced the two new musicals that will get public readings June 23 and 24 during the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. YIMT is expressly designed for young composers transitioning from school to the real world.

The 2017 shows are:

“Cowboy Bob,” created by Molly Beach Murphy, Jeanna Phillips and Annie Rippe, with book by Murphy and music and lyrics by Phillips. It’s described as “equal parts Riot Grrrl rage and Texas two-step,” about a woman who is “a good neighbor, a good daughter, and a great bank robber” and who, “disguised as a man in a fake beard and a ten-gallon hat, evaded detection for more than a decade.”

“Gumbo,” with music by Brett Macias and book and lyrics by Christina Quintana. It boasts a “jazz and R&B-infused score” and “begins on the eve of a monstrous hurricane when a newlywed woman accepts an ominous offer from a mysterious stranger.”

YIMT will also host a workshop, without a public reading, of “RED + VoDKa + ME,” with book and lyrics by Gordon Leary and music by Julia Meinwald.

One show that began at YIMT and went on to professional stagings elsewhere is “Stuck Elevator” by Aaron Jafferis and Byron Au Yong. It was announced March 28 that the pair’s new show “(Be)Longing” will be at the Arts & Ideas festival this year, June 17 and 18 at the Long Wharf Theatre.

Details at drama.yale.edu/Institute or artidea.org.