Cocktails & Critics
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NEWSLETTER Vol. 17. No.1 tactics Summer 2009/2010 The ACTORS COMPANY THEATRE Scott Alan Evans, Cynthia Harris & Simon Jones, Co-Artisitic Directors What’S INSIDE: Cocktails & Critics: Sweet 16 GALA .........2 TACT's Glittering New Season "Superb!”1 schedule of our celebrated Salon Series our mission and our artists that has in- Reviving SIDNEY to accommodate a very gratifying surge spired this season’s selection of plays. In HOWARD ...................3 “Delicious”2 in subscribers, and our production our early days, we often longed to have of The Eccentricities of a Nightingale the opportunity to further develop some TACT/QC Alliance.......3 “One of the landed on The New York Times Top of the work we presented in our Concert Most Important Theatre Picks for 2008! But we’re just Performances and Salon readings. This TACT Season Companies getting started. season we are celebrating our roots by 3 doing just that. Recap ..................... 4-5 in New York” Our growth and success is directly re- lated to the support we’ve received from We bring you two remarkable plays that STUDIO Facelift ..........6 hese are just a few of the many our long-time subscribers and contribu- we’ve explored in the reading format and accolades heaped upon TACT/The tors - and that keeps growing as well. are now, at last, giving them their full due Actors Company Theatre in the 2009/10 T Our loyal audiences have cheered us on on the stages of Theatre Row. First up SALON SERIES ..........6 three years we’ve been in residence at and spurred us to reach for increasingly in November, Yankee practicality slams Theatre Row. At the risk of tooting our loftier goals, helping TACT to mature against the New York Art World in Sidney own horn, we are bursting with pride. EARLY BIRD into one of New York’s most valued and Howard’s sly 1930’s comedy, The Late SUBSCRIPTION! ........7 2008/09 was, without question, our most respected not-for-profit theatre compa- Christopher Bean. Come spring you’re successful season to date – and in what nies. Our critically-acclaimed ensemble invited to the brilliant world of T.S. Eliot’s had to be one of the toughest years for of professional theatre artists remains The Cocktail Party, where the traditional the arts. TACT garnered some of the committed to both our supporters and British drawing-room comedy tangles best notices of the theatrical season with the rediscovery of exceptional, though with philosophical discourse on the our productions of both Bedroom Farce rarely seen, plays by great writers. nature of human relations. tact and Incident at Vichy, selling out their 1. takt; 2. taet, n. runs. We also extended the performance It is this commitment to our audience, 1The New Yorker 2The New York Times 3Show Business Weekly dedicated to presenting infrequently-seen plays of literary merit with an Cocktails & Critics emphasis on creating theatre 2009/10 Season* COMPANY NEWS from its essence: the text and the actor’s ability to bring it to THE LATE TACT proudly welcomes two new projects. He also teaches at UCLA. life. members into the fold: MARK ALHADEFF MARY BACON just finished a run CHRISTOPHER BEAN to our Acting Company and composer Infrequently-seen: adj. phrase. by Sidney Howard of A.R. Gurney’s Children directed by unproduced in a first-class JOSEPH TRAPANESE to our Adjuct John Tillinger at the Westport Country production in NYC within the last November 1 to December 5, 2009 Company. Though we’ve known Mark for Playhouse. The production then traveled 15 years. a while, it was just this past fall when he up to The Williamstown Theater Festival All hell breaks loose when a celebrated was first able to join us in a professional Literary merit: n. laudable painter’s early works are traced to the humble where it opened the Mainstage season. language of particular interest, capacity. Those of you who saw them will home of a country doctor. Both a biting satire certainly remember his vivid portrayals on EVE BIANCO continues her thriving uniqueness; or representative of voiceover career. a specific period or era. on the destructive power of greed and a our Mainstage – last fall as the hilariously touching view of a family in turmoil, this feisty self-centered Trevor in our production of DARYL BORNSTEIN just completed one With original incidental musical Bedroom Farce, by Alan Acykbourn, and recording project as producer/engineer scores commissioned exclusively comedy will have you cheering for the most in the spring as Lebeau, the painter, in with members of the NY Philharmonic for our production through a unlikely of heroines. unique partnership with The Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy. Mark also to be released in the Fall on Avie Manhattan School of Music. appeared with us in our Salon productions Records. Three more projects are near THE COCKTAIL PARTY of Ladies in Retirement, Edward, My Son completion. Donning professorial robes by T.S. ELIOT and The Tavern. Joseph Trapanese came for the first time, Daryl is also teaching March 14 to April 10, 2010 to us initially, as so many of our talented an intensive seminar this summer at NYU composers do, through our partnership titled "The Art And Science Of Sound Our 2009/10 season is made Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne are with the Manhattan School of Music. Reinforcement." possible with public funds from throwing a party at their fashionable London He first composed the music for our the New York State Council on flat. The guests arrive only to discover that NORA CHESTER appeared in The the Arts, a State agency and Salon production of A Handsome Man in Learned Ladies of Park Avenue at the by an award from the National their hostess is no where to be found and a 2005. He went on to do the scores for Endowment for the Arts Monomoy Theatre in Cape Cod early this rather strange man, who no one knows, seems our Mainstage productions of The Sea, summer. In August she will be heading right at home. Ruthless and compassionate, The Runner Stumbles and, most recently, out to the Pacific Northwest to see family this “Cocktail Party” embodies the day-to-day Incident at Vichy. Joseph now lives in and become acquainted with the newest struggle of domestic life while turning the LA where is working as a composer additions: two great-nieces and two and orchestrator for film and television classic ‘drawing room comedy’ on its head. great-nephews. She will return baby- *Plays subject to change without notice. COMPANY NEWS continues on page 2 2 3 SUMMER 2009/10 SUMMER 2009/10 COMPANY NEWS Reviving the Late MainstaGE continued from page 1 TACT's SUPER drunk and madly in love, no doubt. GALA CYNTHIA DARLOW was a stand-by for the Sidney Howard Gala Contributors Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of Accent 16 on Youth on Broadway, which closed a the THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN Lorraine Abraham Darrie Lawrence end of June. Cynthia, however, continues her Laurie & John Adams Lianne Lazetera & James Aisenberg Sandy Schlesinger Broadway run as she goes on to stand-by for the n October 1923, the playwright Sidney its ugly head. In the original New York Times review, Brooks Atkinson Jayne Atkinson Stephen Lindenmuth sweet role of "Grandma" in Billy Elliot during July. She’s Howard (who at that time was a praised Walter Connolly’s portrayal as the “quintessence of the comic Mary Bacon & Andrew Leynse Kelley Lloyd a delegate at the national AFTRA convention in respected, socially conscious journalist spirit,” metamorphosing from the village doctor into “a hoss-swapper Deirdre & Lawrence Bader Maria-Luisa & Larry Loeb I Chicago in August, and is so proud of husband, Ann & Joel Berson Marilyn Lubell and occasional playwright but not yet a and a huckster in one beautiful Autumn day.” Howard does not aim his Richard Ferrone (see below) for being elected to Eve Bianco Lynford Family Charitable Trust major theatrical force) was sailing home to targets solely at greed, however. He shows us what is lost, namely love William Boswell Kay & Roger Lyons the national and local boards! Linda Brandi Leola & Robert Macdonald New York from Europe when his ship, the and art. At the play’s heart is Abby, the Haggett’s servant and the only SCOTT ALAN EVANS entered the world of dance Diane Brandt & Martin Lewis Jennifer Maufrais Kelly Scythia, collided with another in a dense fog. one who recognized Bean’s talent and believed in him. Originally played Lucy & Donald Brennan Gene McCarthy this past spring when he directed a new work THE Lisa & Tony Castrigno Anne Meara & Jerry Stiller entitled Dance/Speak for the New York Theatre In the ensuing chaos, the passengers were by Pauline Lord, Howard creates in Abby a heroine that elevates the Claudia Catania Cordelia & Carl Menges Ballet company. The play, by Anderson Ferrell, is told to prepare to abandon ship. Howard play from socially conscious satire to a genuine emotional work rooted Nora Chester Susan Michelson & about the life and work of Agnes DeMille and the L ATE returned to his state room and collected the in character. When learning playwriting at Harvard, Howard was told Kay Chester David Manch Annette de Lara & Christine Millen & Bill Pinzler James Prendergast, Cynthia Harris, Angela Lansbury, Ron McClary production featured many of her dances included CHRISTOPHER two most important things he owned, items that truth was the vital component in art. While largely forgotten today, & Jack Koenig. Photo by Jennifer Maufrais Kelly William Cobbs Susan & Joel Mindel several rarely seen and recently reconstructed he would rather follow to a watery grave Howard was a major force in the theater of the 20’s and 30’s, spoken Lisa & Clemente Cohen Rick Miramontez pieces.