What the performers are talking about.
Revving up for the summer, Clarke Peters talks about how The Whipping Man has as much to say about blacks as about jews, while the Berkshire Theatre Festival has started rehearsals for K2. Over at Williamstown, they are bowled over by the number of Tony nominations their extended family of actors and production staff has accumulated. And in Lenox, Tina Packer is once again on stage in Women of Will.
Today, tickets for WTF went on sale online, and the box office itself opens June 1 for phone and window sales. The first arrivals for the Summer are already trickling it, and there will be another wave next week.
Who’s Who at the Tony Awards
Looking at the casting list from Williamstown Theatre Festival you can’t help but be impressed at the number of nominations their actors have received this year.
Chris Fitzgerald is nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for Finian’s Rainbow. A long-time WTF Alum, Chris began his career in Williamstown and has appeared in over ten productions at the WTF! Don’t miss your chance to see him this summer in the all-male A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, June 30-July 11.
Jessica Hecht is nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for A View from the Bridge. Jessica also loves to spend her summers at WTF; You may have seen her in classics like The Autumn Garden, Blithe Spirit, Three Sisters, and The Torch-Bearers. She’ll appear again this summer in Our Town, July 28-August 8.
Sarah Ruhl is nominated for Best Play for In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play. Sarah was a WTF Fellowship playwright in 2004.
And WTF 2009 Alums:
Stephen Kunken is nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for Enron.
Katie Finneran is nominated for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Promises, Promises.
Alexander Dodge is nominated for Best Scenic Design of a Play for Present Laughter.
Derek McLane is nominated for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Ragtime.
Congratulations also to Marian Seldes who was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in Theatre as well as David Hyde Pierce who was awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Award and began his career here in our Second Company.
Clarke Peters is clearly enjoying his Berkshire idyll
Clarke Peters, LeRoy McClain and Nick Westrate in The Whipping Man
The best known and most accomplished actor in the cast of The Whipping Man, Clarke Peters takes time out from rehearsals to talk candidly about his take on The Whipping Man.
Tickets for the remainder of the short run are selling steadily, so if you want to see this stirring and provocative play about the Civil War, don’t dither. Go to www.barringtonstageco.org
Our interviews with the writer of The Whipping Man, Matthew Lopez, is here, as is our talk with the director, Christopher Innvar which is here.
Lopez has discovered the blueberry pancakes at Blue Benn Diner in Bennington and may take some back to San Diego when he returns to the Old Globe Theatre where he is playwright in residence.
With near universal positive reviews (including mine) The Whipping Man has had performances added and its run extended to June 17.
K-2 in Rehearsal at Berkshire Theatre Festival
Things are humming over at the Berkshire Theatre Festival where they have begun preparations for the mountain climbing epic K2. The piece is directed by Wes Grantom and features Greg Keller as Harold and Tim McGeever as Taylor. The design team includes Kenneth Grady Barker (scenic), Laurie Churba Kohn (costumes), Shawn E. Boyle (lighting), and J Hagenbuckle (sound).
We have written a K2 primer on the show which will make you an expert audience member, and pull you deep into the story. Meantime, tickets can be had at www.berkshiretheatre.org
Tina Packer Rules the Stage
Tina Packer in Women of Will
Shakespeare & Company’s Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer’s Women of Will returned to the stage last night. Women of Will is an exploration the feminine spirit in Shakespeare’s plays.
This extraordinary evening of theatre is the culmination of Packer’s lifelong fascination with Shakespeare from a woman’s perspective. You must read Gail Burns’ take on it. She spent some time with Tina in the weeks leading up to this production.
Audiences have until July 24th to see this overview, before Tina moves on to directing The Taster and then an extremely-limited one-time-only performance of the entire five-part work in the Bernstein Center this August. www.shakespeare.org
