Blow Winds And Crack Your Cheeks
It’s election season, and the University of Connecticut’s CT Rep has chosen a king. Graeme Malcolm, known to Connecticut theatergoers from shows at Hartford Stage (“Under Milk Wood”), Long Wharf (“Travesties”) and Yale Rep (“Pentecost”), not to mention Broadway productions of “Equus,” Brian Friel’s “Translations,” “Aida” and “The King and I,” will wander the heath as King Lear Oct. 6-16. One of Malcolm’s more interesting Shakespearean credits is the vampire flick “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead.” He was also “The Man With the Apple” on TV’s “The Blacklist.”
Raphael Nash Thompson (Aegisthus in Hartford Stage’s 2003 “Electra,” Gower in “Pericles” Off-Broadway) will be Gloucester. UConn MFA students in the cast are Michael Bobenhausen, Alrene Bozich, Darren Brown, Natalia Cuevas, Jeff DeSisto, Curtis Longfellow, Emile Saba, Meredith Saran and Bryce Wood. The undergraduate students are Kent Coleman, Nick Greika, Derrick Holmes, Scott Redmond, Ben Senkowski, Ryan Shea, Andrew Smith and Kristen Wolfe.
UConn has a copy of the Shakespeare First Folio on display through Sept. 25. Then comes King Lear. Details at 860-486-2113, crt.uconn.edu.
Ruhl’s Rulers
“Scenes from Court Life or the whipping boy and his prince” is the sixth work by Sarah Ruhl to be produced at Yale Rep, the third world premiere of a Ruhl play there, and the second to feature a Republican U.S. president among its characters. Ronald Reagan made an appearance in Ruhl’s “Passion Play,” and “Scenes from Court Life” crosses a tale of British Kings Charles I and II with the Bush siblings George and Jeb.
The Rep has announced the cast for the show, which runs Sept. 30 through Oct. 22.
Greg Keller (from “War” at the Rep two seasons ago) is both Charles II and George W. Bush. T. Ryder Smith is a pair of patriarchs: Charles I and George H.W. Bush, and Danny Wolohan (“An Octoroon” Off-Broadway) is the “whipping boy” of the title (also Jeb Bush). Barbara Bush is played by Mary Schultz, who appeared in the 1993 Yale Rep production of “The Baltimore Waltz” by Sarah Ruhl’s mentor, Paula Vogel. Angel Desai (“An Infinite Ache” at Long Wharf in 2001) plays Laura Bush and Karen Lugo doubles as Catherine of Braganza and Columbia Bush. Jeff Biehl — memorable as the mastiff in “The Moors” at Yale Rep last season — portrays Karl Rove, an executioner and “Groom of the Stool.” Andrew Weems (Long Wharf’s “Rocket to the Moon” and “Much Ado About Nothing,” lots of classics and new plays Off Broadway) plays a slew of small roles, including 16th century architect Inigo Jones and George W. Bush’s painting instructor Bonnie Flood. There’s also an ensemble, made up of current Yale School of Drama acting students John Colley (MFA), Evelyn Giovine, Hudson Oznowicz and Arturo Soria. Details at 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.
College Shows
Some of the country’s best academic theater programs are in Connecticut. School has been back in session for a few weeks, and the first school shows are just around the corner. The Yale School of Drama announced the titles and dates of the three full thesis productions helmed by students in their final year of the school’s directing program. The shows are designed and acted by other YSD students. First up, Oct. 18-22, is the Garcia Lorca classic “Blood Wedding,” directed by Kevin Hourigan from a new translation by YSD dramaturgy student Nahuel Telleria. Dec. 6-10 brings “Bugaria! Revolt!,” a “tragicomic new musical” by Miranda Rose Hall and directed by Elizabeth Dinkova — the pair who brought you the outstanding “Antarctica! Which Is to Say Nowhere” at the Yale Summer Cabaret this past June. The 17th century John Ford tragedy “‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore,” directed by Jesse Rasmussen, runs Jan. 31 through Feb. 4. Details at 203-432-1234, drama.yale.edu
Other cool college shows coming up include the literate Charles Mee romance “Summertime” at Wesleyan Center for the Arts in mid-November (860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa/) and such political works as Clifford Odets’ “Waiting for Lefty” and Bernardo Solano and Allan Havis’ “Nuevo California” at UConn’s Connecticut Repertory Theatre (860-486-2113, crt.uconn.edu).
Even Wilder
Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” continues to be one of the most popular American plays ever. In recent months you could have found productions in Beacon Falls and New Britain. The University of New Haven, New Haven’s High School in the Community and Amity High School — all just a short distance from Hamden, where Wilder lived for decades — are among those doing “Our Town” this fall or winter. There have been noteworthy stagings of the play at Hartford Stage (with Hal Holbrook), Westport Playhouse (with Paul Newman in 2002) and Long Wharf (to mark that theater’s 50th anniversary in 2014).
But Wilder already had a hit play running on Broadway when “Our Town” premiered in 1938. It was his adaptation of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” starring Ruth Gordon and produced by Jed Harris. Some credit Wilder’s version with renewing interest in a drama, whose women’s rights themes were already considered passé. The script endured in many forms; you can download a 1938 “Lux Radio Theatre” broadcast that contains some of it, starring Joan Crawford. But for some reason, until now it’s never been published — not even in the 800-page “Collected Plays and Writings on the Theater” doorstop that Library of America published in 2007.
“A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen — A New Acting Version in English for Jed Harris by Thornton Wilder” (you gotta love the 79-year-old “new” in that subtitle) was issued this month by Theatre Communications Group. It reads smoothly and suspensefully, even the stage directions: “He closes the door after Doctor Rank, who comes carefully, neatly, like a man knowing his every footstep, into the living room.” Bonus material includes a brief preface and extensive afterword by Tappan Wilder (Thornton’s nephew and literary executor) plus intriguing quotes from Midwestern reviews of “A Doll’s House”‘s pre-Broadway tour.
So who’s going to be the first theater in Connecticut to stage this thing?
Ferrentino’s Kesselring
Lindsey Ferrentino, who graduated from the Yale School of Drama in May, has won the Joseph Kesselring Prize for her play “Ugly Lies the Bone.” The play was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Center in Waterford in 2014. Ferrentino’s “Amy and the Orphans” — an impressive, risk-taking family drama that had a major role for an actor with Down syndrome — was seen at the Carlotta Festival of New Plays in May. Part of the prize is $25,000, recently raised from $10,000. The Kesselring Prize is named for the guy who wrote “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and is administered by the National Arts Club.
On the Boards
Where’s the next generation of theater professionals coming from? They’re already here! West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park began its Young Professional Advisory Board last year and is looking for new members now, at the outset of its eighth season. These six young professional advisers, drawn from the “Greater Hartford arts community,” serve on sub-committees, act as ambassadors for the theater, and of course attend Playhouse on Park shows and special events such as the Mayor’s Charity Ball. For details on joining the YPAB, contact the Playhouse’s Executive Director Tracy Flater at tflater@playhousetheatregroup.org.
