Leonard Nimoy, Spock of 'Star Trek,'
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THE MORNING LINE DATE: Monday, March 2, 2015 FROM: Emily Meagher, Michelle Farabaugh Cameron Draper, Lucie Sorel, Katelyn Fuentes PAGES: 21, including this page. March 1, 2015 Nick Offerman Joins ‘Confederacy of Dunces’ By Andrew R.Chow It’s not quite The Cones of Dunshire, but it’s close. This November, the “Parks and Recreation” alumnus Nick Offerman will star in the world premiere production of “A Confederacy of Dunces” with the Huntington Theater Company in Boston. The play is being adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher (“Stage Beauty”) from the beloved 1980 novel of the same name by John Kennedy Toole. Alan Friedman called the novel a “masterwork of comedy” in his review for The New York Times Book Review. Mr. Toole was awarded the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for the novel posthumously; he committed suicide in 1969. Many efforts have been made to adapt the novel. John Belushi, Will Ferrell and Jack Black were among those attached to various film projects that never fully developed. Mr. Offerman will be the first lead in the role, and will move from one outlandish egotist (on “Parks”) to another. “I am simply tumescent at the prospect of assaying the beloved character of Ignatius J. Reilly with our team of magnificent and weird artistic champions,” Mr. Offerman said in a statement. “It seems only fitting that I should follow seven seasons of Ron Swanson’s beef with the pudding of Toole’s corpulent fop.” David Esbjornson will direct. Performances are scheduled to run Nov. 11 through Dec. 13. Total Daily Circulation – 1,897,890 Total Sunday Circulation – 2,391,986 Monthly Online Readership – 30,000,000 February 26, 2015 Review: ‘Five Times in One Night,’ at Ensemble Studio Theater By Alexis Soloski There were ample giggles throughout the first three parts of Chiara Atik’s “Five Times in One Night,” a series of comedy sketches with a lewd title and a tender heart at the Ensemble Studio Theater. But it was only in the fourth scene that wails and whimpers of pained recognition rang out. I saw women watching with hands over their mouths and one man who appeared to have shut his eyes entirely. Ms. Atik’s play examines what we talk about when we talk about sex, providing chats from the world’s first couple, Adam and Eve, to its last, Mel and Djuna, the lone survivors of A.D. 2119. Dylan Dawson and Darcy Fowler play all the roles and in the fourth sketch, set “next week,” they are Laura and Tim, a couple suffering an erotic slump. When Tim initiates a conversation about their ho-hum sex life, the tête-à-tête reveals uncomfortable truths — so uncomfortable that each one elicited a chorus of groans. “Five Times” is more often cute and maybe a little collegiate. Even the sixth-floor space, with its comfy couches and tricked out freight elevator, feels a little like a dorm hangout. Ms. Atik supplies al fresco copulation in a snakeless Garden of Eden and reimagines the letters of the medieval clerics Abelard and Heloise as a series of not-so-instant messages. “Such a fun night,” Heloise writes. “Next time maybe we’ll actually talk about Plato, though, O.K.? Ha.” The castration joke is also pretty good. But it’s with Tim and Laura that Ms. Atik’s voice registers most clearly. The writing feels specific and universal, mirthful and agonizing. Ms. Fowler and Mr. Dawson, who are, like Ms. Atik, alumni of the theater’s Youngblood playwriting group, aren’t necessarily the most plastic of actors and don’t differentiate maximally between characters. They are, however, virtuosos of comic timing — they know how to make a line sing, zing or sting, as the moment requires. R. J. Tolan’s direction is clean and nimble. Maybe he and the actors can’t quite sell that future-set sketch, which feels a little strained. But even here, Ms. Atik supplies some riotous lines, as when Mel offers the best excuse since “not tonight, I have a headache.” Sorry, she tells the last man on Earth, but when the apocalypse came and seven billion people died, “my sex drive also took a hit that day.” “Five Times in One Night” continues through March 14 at the Ensemble Studio Theater, 549 West 52nd Street, Sixth Floor, Clinton; 866-811-4111, ensemblestudiotheatre.org. Total Daily Circulation – 1,897,890 Total Sunday Circulation – 2,391,986 Monthly Online Readership – 30,000,000 March 1, 2015 Review: ‘Comfort Dogs’ Explores the Solace of Communing With Canines By Alexis Soloski The performers in the playwright and director William Burke’s “Comfort Dogs: Live From the Pink House” are unusually brazen. They will sniff your hand, nuzzle your thigh, leap into your lap. Some of these actors are dogs. Some are people playing dogs. All are pretty cute. Short, sweet and still sort of nebulous, Mr. Burke’s play, part of the Damnable Scribbling series celebrating Brooklyn College playwrights at Jack in Clinton Hill, centers on therapy dogs and the people who find solace and succor in their wet-nosed company. Well, maybe it does. Honestly, it’s a little hard to tell. There are speeches and songs seemingly written from a dog’s-eye perspective: “Not afraid. The wheel. The welcome. The smell. Not afraid. Walk. The door. The door.” There are also letters, placed on seats throughout the small theater, that are begged for by the actors playing dogs and are apparently supposed to be written by people: “When the time is right. Please come back. Your head will always have a place on my lap.” Mr. Burke’s last play, “the food was terrible” at the Bushwick Starr, used repeated words to show how language sustains and fails us. The concept was great, the execution tenuous. Here, the notion of integrating dog and human performers is terrific, and the canine songs — composed by Shane Chapman in shambling roots-rock style and played by the cast — are groovy. At this point, I’m not sure how much Mr. Burke’s text, which still feels provisional, adds. Then again, Mr. Burke seems to be focusing once more on the uselessness of words, the insufficiency of communication. Dogs have a limited vocabulary. So, too, do people who are suffering. It’s hard not to think of that terrible line of King Lear’s: “Howl, howl, howl, howl!” Wait, are these dogs quoting Shakespeare? Even if they’re not, of course they upstage their human co-stars, however fine. White Bluet, brown Bronco and black Gypsy stalk Carolyn Mraz’s deconstructed stage in their own time, in their own way — naturally, imperiously, affectionately. Their way of moving through the theater and the world forces you to look and listen differently. It’s a good dog that can do that — and a very good play, which “Comfort Dogs” could easily become. Here’s hoping Mr. Burke can bring it to heel. “Comfort Dogs: Live From the Pink House” continues through March 14 at Jack, 505 ½ Waverly Avenue, at Fulton Street, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn; jackny.org. Total Daily Circulation – 1,897,890 Total Sunday Circulation – 2,391,986 Monthly Online Readership – 30,000,000 March 1, 2015 Review: ‘John & Jen,’ a Revival Starring Kate Baldwin and Conor Ryan By Ben Brantley Growing up isn’t easy. Just take a look at Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” if you need reminding. But imagine how difficult it must be to do so — and I mean the hard part, from early childhood to the end of adolescence — in less than two hours, and in song, and in front of a live audience. That’s the task that’s been assigned to Kate Baldwin and Conor Ryan, the appealing stars (and entire cast) of the Keen Company’s 20th-anniversary revival of “John & Jen,” Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald’s blunt button pusher of a musical about changing times and a fraying family. Yet these agile performers find a beguiling grace in the ungainly process of fast-forward maturation. Mercifully, they also manage, whenever possible, to avoid getting stuck in the syrupy sticky patches with which the show lines their path. As the title characters in this Jonathan Silverstein production, which opened on Thursday night on Theater Row, Ms. Baldwin and Mr. Ryan must advance from being cute, loving siblings in the 1950s to political antagonists in the tumultuous ’60s, building a legacy of guilt along the way. And that’s just in the first act. In the second, Ms. Baldwin’s Jen moves on toward middle age as the smothering single mother to another John (Mr. Ryan again), whom she has named after her now absent brother. And Mr. Ryan has to morph from toddler to teenager all over again, but with a different personality. That they achieve their metamorphoses with such unforced charm makes “John & Jen,” limpidly directed by Mr. Silverstein, worth a visit for aficionados of deft acting in musicals. Ms. Baldwin, who has appeared on Broadway in “Finian’s Rainbow” and Mr. Lippa’s “Big Fish,” confirms her status as a silver-voiced singer of engaging emotional openness, while revealing a light comic touch she hasn’t had much chance to display before. And the relatively little-known Mr. Ryan, a graduate of the University of Michigan who appeared last year at the Public Theater in “The Fortress of Solitude,” gives a witty, fluid and precociously assured performance that should have casting directors pricking up their ears. If “John & Jen” serves as nothing more than a professional calling card for its gifted stars, it has provided a legitimate service.