Lewis Black

This popular revival will be joined by Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, along with three new works: Lewis Black’s One Slight Hitch, the East Coast Premiere of Bess Wohl’s Touch(ed), and The Civilians’ production of You Better Sit Down: tales from my parents’ divorce. This last play is perhaps both the most original and the most familiar dealing as it does with families and divorce. It can be seen in our lead picture above and a video embedded below. It has a shorter one week run at the close of the season. 

Lili Taylor will appear in A Dolls House.

It is Gersten’s first year as WTF’s new artistic director, replacing Nicholas Martin who left at the end of last season. The company’s three main stage selections were announced last month, and feature two upbeat comedies plus a romantic musical journey of Rogers and Hart songs. 

The season will start with Streetcar on June 22, 2011, joined shortly after by a zany comedy You Can’t Take it With You on the big stage beginning July 1. You Can’t Take it With You was written by the legendary Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman and has been slated for an unprecedented three week run. With a large cast and screwball plot, Berkshire audiences will lap up this madcap play with its over the top second act. Done half right it will sell out, but done with all the bells and whistles, there will likely be a stampede to the box office for tickets. In terms of funny, nothing on television even comes close to the situations in this comedy.

Hamish Linklater will be seen in A Doll's House.

Following on its heels on the main stage is Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer which has been cracking people up for 238 years, no mean accomplishment. With the flourishes that returning Nicholas Martin will surely give this classic, it wil have the tough local audiences rolling in the aisles. There is no better laugh track for comedy than the real thing in a packed theatre. 

The final main stage event is John Doyle’s unique pairing of actors who accompany themselves by playing instruments on stage in a look back at the gorgeous music of Rogers and Hart, Ten Cents a Dance.

Directors taking part in the 2011 Nikos Stage season include David Cromer, Trip Cullman, Sam Gold, Joe Grifasi and Anne Kauffman. Actors Jessica Hecht, Paige Howard, Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe, Sam Rockwell, Lili Taylor and many more will be featured this season on the Nikos Stage.

“These selections represent an ambitious experiment for the 173-seat Nikos Stage”, Ms. Gersten commented. “While new plays continue to be the focus of this venue, the inclusion of innovative revivals of classics gives our audience a fresh and more intimate relationship with these works. Simultaneously, artists will have the opportunity to explore more nuanced, introspective interpretations of these great plays.”

Regulars should also note the new curtain times for 2011: Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 2:00 and Tuesday through Saturday Evenings at 7:30.

Jessica Hecht

The Nikos Stage season includes: 

A Streetcar Named Desire
June 22– July 3, 2011

The Nikos Stage season begins June 22nd, 2011 with a revival of Tennessee Williams’ incendiary drama, directed by David Cromer (Our Town). The cast will feature Jessica Hecht (A View From the Bridge; Our Town at WTF) as Blanche DuBois and Sam Rockwell (A Behanding in Spokane; The Hot L Baltimore at WTF) as Stanley Kowalski.

Sam Rockwell

With 28 productions of his plays in the WTF history, Tennessee Williams and the Williamstown Theatre Festival have had a long and impressive relationship. 

Williams 100th Birthday

To honor his 100th birthday, there’s no better gift than an intimate new production of his masterwork by one of today’s most inventive directors.

Presented in the close quarters of the Nikos Stage, the audience will take up temporary residence in the stifling Kowalski apartment to witness Williams’ turbulent tale of longing and delusion. The hot and steamy New Orleans location and sensual undercurrents will be palpable to everyone lucky enough to see this classic. It may be one for the ages.

Paige Howard

One Slight Hitch
July 6 – 17, 2011 

Comedian and playwright Lewis Black comes home to WTF with a modern day farce that mocks the all-too-human desire to shape our own destiny.

The story: It’s Courtney’s wedding day, and her mom, Delia, is making sure that everything is perfect.

Mark Linn-Baker

The groom is perfect, the dress is perfect, and the decorations (assuming they arrive) will be perfect. Then, like in any good farce the doorbell rings. 

And all hell breaks loose.

So much for perfect.

Joe Grifasi (Chances Are) directs a cast that includes Paige Howard (Adventureland) as Melanie and Mark Linn-Baker (As You Like It at WTF) as Doc Coleman.

Oscar Isaac

A Doll’s House
July 20 – 31, 2011 

Nora Helmer has everything an affluent housewife could want: beautiful children, an adoring husband, a bright future. When a carelessly buried secret rises to the surface, her well-calibrated, though artificial, domestic ideal begins to crumble. Terrified by this new reality, Nora must choose between outward perfection and inner truth. Still bracingly relevant, Ibsen’s masterpiece, in a striking contemporary translation, offers no safer conclusions today than when it stormed stages of 19th-century Europe.

Lily Rabe

The play was the first of Ibsen’s to create a sensation and is now perhaps his most famous play, and required reading in many secondary schools and universities. The play was controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th century marriage norms.

It is often called the first true feminist play. The play is also an important work of the naturalist movement, in which real events and situations are depicted on stage in a departure from previous forms such as romanticism.

Matthew Maher

Some of New York’s finest actors will take the stage.

Sam Gold (Circle Mirror Transformation) directs a cast that includes Oscar Isaac (Shakespeare in the Park’s Romeo and Juliet) as Krogstad, Hamish Linklater (Shakespeare in the Park’s The Merchant of Venice; “The New Adventures of Old Christine”) as Torvald, Matthew Maher (Gone Baby Gone) as Doctor Rank, Lily Rabe (The Merchant of Venice; WTF’s Crimes of the Heart) as Nora, and Lili Taylor (“Six Feet Under”; Aunt Dan and Lemon, WTF’s The Landscape of the Body) as Kristine. 

Bess Wohl

Touch(ed)
August 3 – 14, 2011 

Kay loves her older sister Emma. Or is it Christina? Christine? Matilda? After spending eight years institutionalized and medicated, Emma has changed more than just her name. Determined to get back the brilliant sister she remembers, Kay rents a cabin in the woods and she and her boyfriend Billy hide the sharp objects, from butcher knife to cheese grater.

Perhaps quality time with loved ones, some home-cooked meals and games of Scrabble will succeed in restoring Emma to health where her psychiatrists have failed. Directed by Trip Cullman (Bachelorette) in its East Coast Premiere, Bess Wohl’s lively, bittersweet comedy explores the scope, limits, and sometimes dangerous side effects of familial love.

You Better Sit Down: tales from my parents’ divorce
August 16 – 21, 2011 (one week only!)

Directed by Anne Kauffman (WTF’s Six Degrees of Separation; This Wide Night) and crafted from interviews between the cast and their own parents, You Better Sit Down is an alternately heartbreaking and hilarious look at the stories behind the statistics of one of the most prominent social phenomena of our time. Shockingly candid, these delicate parent-child conversations, with the actors playing their own parents, yield unique insights into falling in love, falling out of love, and rebuilding a life after the complex experience of dividing a family.

The Civilians, a New York-based theater company, creates original work derived from investigations into the world beyond the theater.

These shows join the previously announced Main Stage productions, which include the Broadway-bound revival of You Can’t Take It With You, the riotous Restoration comedy She Stoops to Conquer, and the American Premiere of John Doyle’s dazzling new musical Ten Cents a Dance. The Main Stage Season begins July 1, 2011 and runs through August 28, 2011.

Announcements regarding additional cast and creative team information for both Nikos Stage and Main Stage productions, as well as additional Festival events, are forthcoming.

New Curtain Times and Ticketing

Special Main Stage and Nikos Stage Season Packages are available for purchase until March 18, 2011 at http://www.wtfestival.org. Single tickets for the 2011 Williamstown Theatre Festival season will go on sale June 1, 2011 and can be purchased online at http://www.wtfestival.org, by phone at (413) 597-3400 or in person at the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, 1000 Main St. (Route 2), Williamstown, MA 02167. New curtain times for all Main Stage and Nikos Stage shows are as follows: Tuesday – Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Saturday & Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For more schedule details, visit www.wtfestival.org.

About the Williamstown Theatre Festival

The Williamstown Theatre Festival brings award-winning actors, directors, and playwrights to the Berkshires, engaging a loyal audience of both residents and summer visitors. A WTF season covers a broad range of theatrical endeavors, revisiting classic plays with exciting new productions on its Main Stage, developing and nurturing bold new works on the Nikos Stage, and offering audiences a rich array of cultural events including Free Theatre, Late-Night Cabarets, readings, workshops, and educational programs like the Greylock Theatre Project–a program for children in neighboring North Adams. While best known for its acclaimed productions, WTF is also home to unparalleled training and professional development programs serving new generations of aspiring theatre artists and managers. WTF was honored with the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 2002 and the Commonwealth Award for Achievement in 2011. The Festival welcomes Jenny Gersten as its new Artistic Director for the 2011 season.

WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
2011 SEASON SUMMARY

NIKOS STAGE

A Streetcar Named Desire
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by David Cromer
Cast includes: Jessica Hecht, Sam Rockwell
June 22 – July 3, 2011

One Slight Hitch
By Lewis Black
Directed by Joe Grifasi
Cast includes: Paige Howard, Mark Linn-Baker
July 6 – 17, 2011

A Doll’s House
By Henrik Ibsen
Translated by Paul Walsh
Directed by Sam Gold
Cast includes: Oscar Isaac, Hamish Linklater, Matthew Maher, Lily Rabe, Lili Taylor
July 20 – 31, 2011

Touch(ed)
By Bess Wohl
Directed by Trip Cullman
August 3 – 14, 2011

You Better Sit Down: tales from my parents’ divorce
Written by Anne Kauffman, Matthew Maher, Caitlin Miller, Jennifer R. Morris, Janice Paran, and Robbie Collier Sublett
Conceived by Jennifer R. Morris
Directed by Anne Kauffman
August 16 – 21, 2011 (one week only!)
ADDED PERFORMANCE: Sunday, August 21st at 7:30pm

MAIN STAGE

You Can’t Take It With You
By Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Directed by Christopher Ashley
July 1 – July 23, 2011

She Stoops to Conquer
By Oliver Goldsmith
Directed by Nicholas Martin
Cast includes: Brooks Ashmanskas, Kristine Nielsen, Jon Patrick Walker, Paxton Whitehead
July 27 – August 7, 2011

Ten Cents a Dance
Conceived and Directed by John Doyle
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Cast includes: Malcolm Gets, Lauren Molina, Jane Pfitsch
August 11 – August 28, 2011