GSP (almost) goes to the Tonys!

George Street Playhouse has always attracted high caliber artists on and off our stage. We also work with burgeoning talents who maintain successful careers in New York on and off Broadway.

This year, GSP alumnae have accumulated a collective 8 2010 Tony Nominations for their work, and you saw them here...FIRST

Joe DiPietro and David Bryan are nominated twice this year for their musical Memphis, (technically bringing our alumni total to 10.) Mssrs. Bryan and DiPietro are both nominated for their score, while Bryan is also nominated for his Orchestrations (with Daryl Waters) and Joe DiPietro is nominated for his book to the musical.

Joe's currently working on Creating Claire here this month, and you saw their Toxic Avenger here last season.

Earlier this season we presented the musical Calvin Berger. The set designer for that show, Derek McLane, won last year's Tony for 33 Variations, and was represented on Broadway this year with three shows Ragtime, The Miracle Worker and Million Dollar Quartet, and was recognized for his tiered set for Ragtime.

Speaking of Calvin Berger, Martin Pakledinaz who created the chic high school fashions for our cast, is nominated this year for his costume design on Ken Ludwig's farce Lend Me A Tenor.

In another design category Robert Wierzel was nominated for his lighting design in the musical Fela! Mr. Wierzel was here two years ago with Theresa Rebeck's play The Scene.

Don Holder's lighting design for Come Fly Away is also nominated. Mr. Holder, who is incredibly busy on Broadway, was last at George Street Playhouse in 1998 during Voices in the Dark.

In Acting Categories, Rosemary Harris and Maria Dizzia are nominated this year in the Featured Actress in a Play. Ms. Harris who was here in Oscar and the Pink Lady is nominated for her extraordinary performance in The Royal Family at Manhattan Theatre Club earlier this season. Ms. Dizzia performed at GSP several seasons ago in Agnes of God, and is nominated for Lincoln Center's production of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play.

A hearty congratulations to all the nominees!

Catching up with the GSP!

So it's been almost a whole month since our last blog post! Blame the holidays, but a lot has still been going on!

George Street Playhouse's production of Oscar and the Pink Lady is gearing up for a run at Florence Gould Hall at the French Institute in NYC. So the props and set are coming out of storage, and Rosemary Harris will soon go back into rehearsal with director, Frank Dunlop.

If you missed it at George Street, now's your chance to catch it for 3 weekends only Janaury 16 - February 1st.

In case you haven't heard, The Toxic Avenger which opened our season, is readying for a spring bow at New World Stages! You can read about it here, here and here, and if you haven't signed up, join www.toxiefans.com today! It's like Facebook, for fans of the show!

Meanwhile for the past two months, our Artistic Director, David Saint has been in rehearsals for the Broadway revival of West Side Story currently playing an out of town tryout at the National Theatre in D.C, for which he's the Associate Director. The much anticipated revival is directed by Arthur Laurents, who directed Gypsy with Patti Lupone, but also has brought nine new works to the stage at George Street including this year's New Year's Eve which will star Marlo Thomas.

Included in the cast are GSP alumns Matt Cavenaugh (as Tony, 2 Lives at GSP), Michael Mastro (as Gladhand, Pillowman, Inspecting Carol at GSP), Lee Sellars (as Krupke, Pillowman at GSP). In addition, both designers Jim Youmans and David Woolard have worked here as well.
See all you guys in New York

But for now, David' s back rehearsing for Sight Unseen with Matthew Arkin, Kathleen McNenny, Heidi Armbruster, and Christopher Curry. The set is currently being loaded in, and performances begin January 20th!

Aunt May makes special appearance.

These photos just in from Rosemary Harris' special appearance at the Bristol Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. The Hospital graciously sponsored our recent production of Oscar and the Pink Lady. Our "Pink Lady" best known to children as "Aunt May" from the Spiderman movies, met some of the kids at the hospital. Here's a look at her extraordinary visit.

Lots O' Press!

Well the reviews are in for Oscar and the Pink Lady. In case you still haven't seen Rosemary Harris' inspiring performance. Here's a few more reasons...

Anita Gates of the NY Times writes: "Here is the grand lady of the stage, costumed as a hospital volunteer of an advanced age and a certain style...and she still radiates an effortless grandeur....Rosemary Harris is absolutely charming, and so the evening is, too." Read the full review

Peter Filichia of the Star Ledger writes "Harris' portrayal of a 10-year old is consistently smart. She offers the squinty and scrunched-up face of a lad who's trying to understand his fate. She's so accomplished there that an audience could easily overlook her other achievement in making a fully developed "Granny Pink." There she offers a soft Irish brogue and an arms-clasped around-her-waist stance that shows Oscar she's taking him seriously....the opportunity to see Rosemary Harris must be seized."

Simon Salzman for US1 and Curtain up says "Rosemary Harris is Luminous and Enchanting...To say that the dual role-playing is simply a tour-de-force for the celebrated actress is to diminish the play's earnest if heavy-handed mission: to question and celebrate the value and delicacy of life from a perspective of youth and old age."

There's also a fantastic read about David Saint's 10th Anniversary, covered by the Princeton Packet. "It’s shaping up to be a bravo kind of year for Mr. Saint during his 10th season as artistic director of the playhouse in New Brunswick. It opened with Jack Klugman and Paul Dooley, along with record-breaking attendance numbers at the theater, in Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys. An acclaimed production of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt followed, and now Ms. Harris is finishing her run in Oscar and the Pink Lady. Next up is the 2007 play The Scene (written by Theresa Rebeck, a hot playwright in the wake of Mauritius’ Broadway run), then the world premiere of Elaine May’s Roger is Dead, starring Marlo Thomas."

posted by Scott Goldman, Executive Assistant

Cuddly makes his Debut!

I love previews at George Street Playhouse mainly because of the discussions with the audience afterwards. In most cases, Artistic Director David Saint is joined on stage by the director and occasionally members of the cast. Last week was a little different when Frank Dunlop the director of Oscar and the Pink Lady and Rosemary Harris, the show's star, surprised everyone (including David), for the talkback. All three nights, Ms. Harris took questions from the audience and also spoke briefly about her distinguished career in theatre and film.

The discussion took a personal twist, when she mentioned that the bear used in the show, was actually from her childhood! As she told it, Ms. Harris was sent to boarding school when she was a girl, and was incredibly homesick. "Cuddly," as she named the bear, comforted her for almost a year. She has since lent him to her sister and her three kids. "Cuddly" has withstood the test of time, though he's lost some of his padding, and is worn after years of use. Oscar...marks Cuddly's stage debut!

"Cuddly" photo by T. Charles Erickson. - posted by Scott Goldman, Executive Assistant

Keeping up with GSP!

So much has happened since our last post....let's get up to speed

This past Sunday, Rosemary Harris had her final dress rehearsal for Oscar and the Pink Lady. What a treat it is to see this amazing actress fluidly move to play so many characters. In attendance were the tech staff (who have been working so hard to put this show up with just TWO WEEKS!), select members of the staff, and Ms. Harris' husband John Ehle (their daughter is Tony Award Winner Jennifer Ehle from The Coast of Utopia). As the director Frank Dunlop noted, it was the first time they were going to attempt running the show without stopping. Much has changed since their run in San Diego. The show was formerly in the round, keeping Ms. Harris moving all the time. Now at GSP, she's tailored her movement and facial expressions, making it all the more nuanced. Midway through the transformation has completely taken hold, and she comes so believable as a 10 year old boy it's truly astonishing. At the final moment of the show, there was barely a dry eye in the house.

There's an elegant simplicity to the show that is just so moving, it's hard to explain, so you'll just have to get out here and see it!

Meanwhile, the fun at GSP never stops. We're just one week away from beginning rehearsals on The Scene, Theresa Rebeck's funny, sexy, racy comedy about trying to make it big. Hopefully, I can convince a member of the cast to join in the blogging fun.

BUT WAIT! There's more! David Saint, our fearless Artistic Director has just begun attending auditions for Roger is Dead our final show of the season starring Marlo Thomas, written and directed by Elaine May.

Somewhere in between all this, our touring company read a new piece in development for next season about the dangers of cyber bullying, and the staff has begun to read scripts under consideration for next season. NEXT SEASON already can you imagine?!

Well, that's all the news for now...stay tuned.

posted by Scott Goldman, Executive Assistant

Frank's Diary

Thought I'd share this bio of Oscar and the Pink Lady director Frank Dunlop...courtesy of The Old Globe

Several years ago Frank Dunlop’s good friend, restauranteur Jean-Claude Baker of Chez Josephine in New York City, gave Dunlop a copy of Oscar and the Pink Lady by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. The novella, originally published in French, was so popular internationally that it was translated into over 20 different languages. By the time Dunlop read Oscar, the stage adaptation had been running in Paris with popular French actress Danielle Darrieux for a couple of years. Recognizing the universality in the story of Oscar, Dunlop immediately tried to get the rights from Schmitt to do a stage adaptation in English, an effort that took another two years. Earlier Dunlop had done another English adaptation: his 2004 production in New York of Kathrine Kressman-Taylor’s novella condemning Nazism, Address Unknown. (editors note: Address Unknown played at GSP in 2005 direct from New York under Dunlop's direction)

Born in Leeds, England, Dunlop says he inherited the theater bug from his parents. They were ballroom dance partners and instructors during the Depression, a fact he claims he didn't discover until a few years ago. It was during his youth spent in Leicestershire that he began going to see all the plays at the city's three theaters. Although he had gone off to “the old Free Thinkers University" in London to become a teacher, he was called up to serve in the Royal Air Force. During his time in the desert, he made the decision to make the theater his career. Just out of the service, he was accepted at the Old Vic School.

Dunlop's career got its biggest boost when he became an associate director with(Sir) Laurence Olivier at London's National Theater in 1967. He recalls his most vivid memory of Olivier: “It was 1970, and I had gone in to see Olivier in his office to tell him that I was leaving to start up the Young Vic Company. Olivier burst into a fit and hysterics that I'd never seen in my life, and he screamed at me, ‘How could you?' conveniently forgetting that I only promised to stay three years. We had a falling out but made up eventually." The year 1974 was good for Dunlop, as two of his productions traveled to Broadway and became big hits. They were Scapino, his opening production for the Young Vic, that starred Jim Dale, and his Royal Shakespeare Company production of Sherlock Holmes starring John Wood as the famous sleuth. From 1983 to 1992, Dunlop was director of the Edinburgh International Festival, where earlier he had premiered Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1972. His many London and international productions include Kopenick with Paul Scofield and Son of Oblomo with Spike Milligan. On Broadway, he also directed Richard Burton's return to Camelot. Dunlop was also the founding director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Theater Company, whose distinguished members included Blythe Danner, Ellen Burstyn, Tovah Feldshuh, Rex Harrison, Denholm Elliot, Rene Auberjonois, Richard Dreyfuss, and good friend Rosemary Harris.

Kim Montelibano Heil, with excerpts from Simon Saltzman of TheatreScene.net.

"Aunt May," "That Girl" and Elaine May!

Lots of exciting news is happening here at George Street. You only have 19 shopping days left! Why not buy that special someone a gift card or tickets to George Street! Two new shows have been announced this week. The first will open in January, Oscar and the Pink Lady stars the great stage and screen star Rosemary Harris, best known as Peter Parker's Aunt May in the recent Spiderman movies. The second announcement is that Marlo Thomas from TV's "That Girl" will star in a new comedy, Roger is Dead, by Elaine May (Oscar Nominated for the original The Heartbreak Kid and writer of Primary Colors). I'm actually one of the few people around here who have never seen That Girl on TV , but I did grow up on the cartoon series Free to Be...You and Me. Fortunately, both are now on DVD and I have this clip from the show. It's clear even here, what a comic actress Ms. Thomas is.



posted by Scott Goldman, Executive Assistant