2007—Where are they now? Part II
Posted by Adam Immerwahr on January 16th, 2008This is Part II of McCarter’s look back at what some of the artists from 2007 are up to now. Click here for Part I.
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Stick Fly
In just a few weeks, Stick Fly playwright Lydia R. Diamond will open her newest world premiere, Harriet Jacobs, at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The play is based on the life of Harriet Jacobs, author of the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. This play, which opens February 8, is part of the Steppenwolf for Young Adults series. Lydia’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye has been receiving productions around the country, and was recently listed as one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s top ten theater events of 2007. The list also includes Argonautika, which recently ended its run at Berkeley Rep. Stick Fly was also recorded by L.A. Theatre Works, and will soon be available for ordering on their website.
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Tartuffe
Tartuffe transferred to Yale Rep, in New Haven, Connecticut and ran through the month of December. it only just ended on December 22, so there hasn’t been all that much time for the various artists of the show to start new projects. The big news, however, is that actress Sally Wingert is slated to lead the cast of Wendy Wasserstein’s Third at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Many of our audience members will remember Sally for her utterly fabulous turn as Dorine, the saucy maid who sees through all of Tartuffe’s cons. Sally is one of the great stars of the Twin Cities, and The Guthrie is one of the finest theaters in the nation (and where McCarter’s Artistic Director Emily Mann did some of her earliest work). There’s a great video of Sally talking about Third here.
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A Christmas Carol
Since closing McCarter’s production of A Christmas Carol, director Michael Unger has started his next venture, directing The Happy Time at Arlington Virginia’s Signature Theatre. The Happy Time is an unfortunately forgotten musical by Kander and Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret, Curtains, etc.). It originally starred Robert Goulet, and sadly its claim to fame is that it was the first Broadway musical to close having recorded a net loss of over a million dollar. Nevertheless, the score is quite tuneful, and Signature, a theater that has recently won great acclaim for its productions of Sondheim musicals, is producing it as part of a Kander and Ebb celebration. Unger is in excellent company; the other festival directors are Eric Schaeffer (Signature’s Artistic Director) and Frank Galati, two time Tony Award-winning director of musicals and classics, and an Associate Director at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. The Happy Time runs April 1-June 1, 2008.
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Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.
One Response to “2007—Where are they now? Part II”
January 16th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for this update, Adam! Your first two items about Lydia Diamond and Sally Wingert make me want to road-trip to the mid-West….by the by, I’m over here in Education East researching Yehuda Hyman and THE MAD 7 to prepare the Educational content for the Audience Guide and I found a great photo of Sally Wingert as the mystical Hassidic rebbe in Yehuda Hyman’s previous multi-actor incarnation of THE MAD 7, THE MAD DANCERS at Minneapolis’ Mixed Blood Theatre. It’s a small theatre world!…one small final and obscure note related to your posting…I wrote a final paper in a Musical Theatre course during my junior year at Mount Holyoke College on Kander and Ebb’s THE HAPPY TIME…it had a really pithy title…wish I could remember it!…so much for obscurity: Vive La HAPPY TIME and Michael Unger!