Weekly Preview | July 13 – 19

WTF Weekly Preview July 13 –19

KNICKERBOCKER Has Opened on the Nikos Stage!

The first show of the 2009 Nikos Stage season opened Thursday night to a standing-room only audience who celebrated the sold-out evening with a soiree at Mezze Restaurant. Knickerbocker, written by Jonathan Marc Sherman and directed by WTF Artistic Director Nicholas Martin, offers us a glimpse into the life of a man as the months tick by and his unborn son grows from the size of a peach to the size of, well, a baby. As the birth date creeps ever nearer, will the advice, encouragement and warnings of friends and family make Jerry more or less ready? The awe and terror of becoming a new parent shines through Sherman’s newest play as he examines whether one can ever truly be ready for parenthood.

The world-premiere of Knickerbocker stars Brooks Ashmanskas, Peter Dinklage, Bob Dishy, Rightor Doyle, Annie Parisse, Susan Pourfar and Reg Rogers. Knickerbocker runs through July 19 only– buy your tickets now before it's too late!

[pictured] Annie Parisse & Reg Rogers

2 for $55 Ticket offer extended to our production of TRUE WEST!

Our 2 tix for $55 offer is back by popular demand! Now through July 16 ONLY, in celebration of our 55th Anniversary Season, you can buy two tickets to our Main Stage production of True West for $55! True West runs July 15 – July 26 and stars Nate Corddry, Stephen Kunken, Debra Jo Rupp and Paul Sparks.

True West is written by American screen and stage legend Sam Shepard and is directed by former WTF Boris Sagal Directing Fellow Daniel Goldstein. This modern classic is an explosive exploration of family rivalry as two very different brothers attempt to sell Hollywood their version of the great American dream.

*Offer valid through July 16, 2009 only for any performance of TRUE WEST. Available by phone 413.597.3400 or in person only using the code "TW-55". Cannot be combined with any other discount and not applicable to previously purchased tickets. Tickets and seating subject to availability. Standard box office policies apply. All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges.

A message from our friends at the Colonial Theatre – WTF Board Member and Audience Favorite James Naughton in Concert!

James Naughton

Mon 7/13/09 7:30pm

A: $45 B: $35

Naughton prefers to focus on styles ranging from pop standards to jazz. Of late, he’s been delving into songs made famous by a wide ranging roster of artists including Frank Sinatra, Randy Newman, Billy Eckstine, Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington. His numbers become miniature dramas—artistic monologues sung with old style “cool.”

For tickets: 413.997.4444 or online at www.thecolonialtheatre.org

Richard Thomas Returns to WTF

Emmy-winning actor Richard Thomas returns to WTF on Sunday, August 2nd in a one-night only special event — Blanche and Beyond, adapted by Steve Lawson from the 1945–1957 letters of Tennessee Williams. The one-man show will mark anniversaries for both alumni: 25 years since Thomas first performed at Williamstown, and 40 years since Lawson's first summer at the Festival.

Blanche —the sequel to A Distant Country Called Youth, presented at WTF in 2002 — covers the peak years of Williams' career... From the Broadway triumphs of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Summer and Smoke and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In letters by turns hilarious, raunchy, and poignant— written to the likes of Elia Kazan, Jessica Tandy, Gore Vidal as well as critics, lovers, and family— Blanche explores a brilliant playwright facing the seismic shock of international fame.

The single performance of Blanche and Beyond will take place on Sunday, August 2nd at 7:00pm on the Main Stage. A Q-&-A with Thomas and Lawson will follow the show. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased by calling 413.597.3400, in person at the WTF box office, or online at wtfestival.org.

Fridays @ 3 this Week is Mistake Were Made by Craig Wright, directed by Hartford Stage’s Jeremy Cohen.

Theatre producer, Felix Artifex works and works all day from his desk. At any moment all ten of his phone lines could be full of people wanting and needing something. His only comfort is a huge, ugly Koi goldfish that lives in a tank in his office. As he tries to put his latest project—Mistakes Were Made, a play about the French Revolution—together he must appease a Hollywood star’s creative input, gently make suggestions to the writer, deal with agents, and free Italian-Americans carting trucks of sheep in a foreign land from a terrorist all in the name of theatre. At the end of the day, one wonders, is it worth it?

Fellowship Project play, After the Revolution

by Amy Herzog, directed by Bill Foeller Fellow Tamara E. Fisch performs July 12 and 13 @ 7pm and 11pm in the Directing Studio

The Workshop presents Directing Assistant shows

July 16 @ 11pm in the Directing Studio

Will You Please Shut Up? By Dan O’Brien

Directed by Adam Knight

[with] Rightor Doyle and Irene Lucio

July 18 @ 11pm in the Directing Studio

The Egg-Layers by Lauren Feldman

Directed by Mike Donahue

[with] Lauren Blumenfeld, Ashton Heyl, Gayle Rankin, Francesca Choy-Kee, and Dan Hartley

[graphic] Art direction and design by Iris A. Brown Design, IABDNY.com. Illustration by Kristin R. Spix Design.

[photo] Sam Hough for © WTF ’09

[pictured] (1) Annie Parisse and Reg Rogers © [Scenic Design | Alexander Dodge; Costume Design | Gabriel Berry; Lighting Design | Philip Rosenber]

[pictured] (2) Stephen Kunken, Debra Jo Rupp, Nate Corddry, Paul Sparks

[ ... ]

KNICKERBOCKER Opening!

KNICKERBOCKER opened last night to a full house on the Nikos Stage, and afterwards the cast and crew joined WTF company members, board members, donors and audience members at Mezze Bistro + Bar for a great opening night party.

[ ... ]

What’s your Knickerbocker?

Jonathan Marc Sherman’s KNICKERBOCKER tells the story of Jerry, a soon-to-be father. From his favorite booth at his favorite restaurant, he’s visited by friends and family who each have some advice to share. Recently, we asked WTF staff to tell us about a restaurant that became, for better or for worse, a home away from home.

Adam Knight [KNICKERBOCKER Assistant Director]

When I was living near Columbus Circle in Manhattan, there was a cheese market across the street with a wine and tappas bar in the back. I’d go there once or twice a week, usually after seeing theatre with a date. I’d always have a different woman (friend) with me, so the wait staff and the owner (a large, 70 year-old Turkish man) thought me some kind of ladies' man. Once, on Christmas Eve, I met two friends there for brunch: three bottles of champagne later, they had missed their matinee and I’d missed my flight home.

A turning point came when I adopted a cat from the owner. After that, I always got a table and my wine glass was constantly refilled. I became friends with the wait staff and would sometimes schlep an hour on the J/Z train to party with them in Bushwick. I’d go to the restaurant five or six times a week. It was my home, my kitchen, the center of my social life. It was a wonderful time.

Julia Isenberg [Publicity Intern]

My “kitchen away from home” is Linda’s in North Adams. When I worked at MASS MoCA, my friends and I would be motivated to roll out of bed early before work for a Linda’s breakfast. We all had our usual order (which Linda always remembered): mine being the most delicious banana pancakes (by far too big and too many so Linda would let us order just half for half the price). We’d also have an ugly mug contest: a fun game considering the random assortment of thrift store worthy mugs there. If you ever go to see the Sol LeWitt Retrospective, all that art on Wednesdays was powered by Linda’s.

Matthew Meier [Graphics Assistant]

The R&R Casino—it’s four great places in one. At least that’s what the radio ads in the ’90s said. Really, it’s more like a trashy casino, a trashy steak house, and a trashy diner (and a now non-existent “Kids Room” where parents could thoughtfully drop their kids off in order to gamble). The diner itself was subtitled “Goodtime Charlies” and I think that says it all. In high school, late night rehearsals and opening nights would always lead us to the 24-hour diner for cokes and cheese fries. Michelle the Waitress watched us grow up in forty-five minute stints since the age of fifteen. Leaving stolen quarters from Dad as a tip, I evolved from the fifteen-year-old-with-nowhere-to-go to the twenty-one-year-old-with-nowhere-to-go… and Michelle’s still working the late night shift. Opening nights of theatre became nights of closing down the bars, and the cheese fries tasted even better. At the R&R, the food’s not spectacular, the service is slow and the townies are out in full force. But at 3:00am in North Central Montana, there is no place I’d rather be.

[photo] Sam Hough for © WTF ’09. Pictured: Reg Rogers and Brooks Ashmanskas in KNICKERBOCKER, Dir. Nicholas Martin

© [Scenic Design | Alexander Dodge, Costume Design | Gabriel Berry, Lighting Design | Philip Rosenberg] 2009

[ ... ]

A strike of inspiration

KNICKERBOCKER playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman drew inspiration for his script from this Story of a Man Who Was Struck By Lightning 7 Times

US Park Ranger Roy C. Sullivan from Virginia holds the record for the person most times struck by lightning—and living to tell the tale. Between 1942 and 1983, Roy has the dubious distinction of being struck by lightning seven times. He was known as the Human Lightning Rod.

The first lightning strike in 1942 happened as he was working up in a lookout tower and the lighting bolt shot through his leg and knocked his big toenail off.

In 1969 while he was driving along a mountain road a second strike burned off his eyebrows and knocked him unconscious. Another strike just a year later, while he was walking across his yard to get the mail, left his shoulder seared.

He was standing in the office at the ranger station in 1972 when lightning set his hair on fire and Roy had to throw a bucket of water over his head to cool off. A year later, after his hair had grown back, a lightning bolt ripped through his hat and hit him on the head, setting his hair on fire again. It threw him out of his truck, knocked his left shoe off and seared his legs. A sixth strike hit him in 1976 while he was checking on a campsite, injuring his ankle.

The last lightning bolt to hit Roy in 1977 happened while he was fishing. It sent him to hospital with chest and stomach burns.

Roy Sullivan was never killed by lighting - he committed suicide while in his 70’s in 1983 reportedly distraught over the loss of a woman.

From the Daily Cognition: Blog of Unusual and Funny News Worldwide www.dailycognition.com

[ ... ]

INTERVIEW | Alexander Dodge, Scenic Designer

[Dramaturg] Amy Lipman: How do you usually start a set design?

[Scenic Designer] Alexander Dodge: I usually start with the text and I familiarize myself with the play. I talk with the director about where they want to go and what kind of response they got when they first started working on the piece, and I take it from there. Usually, ideas spill out pretty quickly.

AL: For this design, did you visit The Knickerbocker [a restaurant] in New York?

AD: I did, actually. We ended up taking a lot of pictures there to use on the set; it was sort of an unusual situation. When I got there, I saw a lot of stuff that would work with the piece and it was great to have that first-hand research.

AL: I had a chance to see your model. Could you talk about the sliding panels? What significance do those hold for the progression of the characters?

AD: Initially, we discussed how the play is very static, very talky. So the director and I were looking at ways to include movement in the transitions, like a cinematic wipe. The panels serve as transitions, and show a passage of time.

AL: You have a history at Williamstown, what keeps you coming back?

AD: I started out here when I was intern myself, and I really enjoy being up here with the people and the whole atmosphere of the festival. I find it recharging, and everybody works their asses off, and that’s kind of the fun of it. I have a great time doing it. It’s beautiful up here, it’s like a vacation from the city.

AL: You work mostly in New York?

AD: Yes, I’m based out of New York, but I work internationally as well as all over the country.

AL: Is there a part of your style that you consider signature?

AD: I get asked that every now and then and I find it hard for me to pinpoint. I try to be as eclectic as possible. When I’m doing my work, I approach it freshly, and I consider that a challenge for me. Looking over my work, I see themes that I’ve found work well.

AL: You’ve worked in opera, dance, and theatre. Do you have a favorite?

AD: I love to work with music, and so opera’s always great, the musical scale makes everything epic. Working on classic plays is fun. I like being able to stretch my legs and do different things, I think that’s exciting.

[ ... ]

KNICKERBOCKER Production Info

KNICKERBOCKER

Nikos Stage | WORLD PREMIERE July 8 – 19

by Jonathan Marc Sherman

directed by Nicholas Martin

[with]
Brooks Ashmanskas (Tony Award Nomination – Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, The Ritz, She Loves Me)

Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, The Chronicles of Narnia, Things We Want)

Bob Dishy (Tony Award Nomination – Sly Fox, The Price)

Rightor Doyle (The Nosemaker’s Apprentice)

Annie Parisse ("Law & Order," Becky Shaw)

Susan Pourfar (The Singing Forest, Swimming in the Shallows)

Reg Rogers (Tony Award Nomination – Holiday, The Understudy)

Are you ready? The question looms over Jerry (Reg Rogers) as the months tick by and his unborn son grows from the size of a peach to the size of, well, a baby. As the birth date creeps ever nearer, will the advice, encouragement and warnings of friends and family make Jerry more or less ready? The awe and terror of becoming a new parent shines through Sherman’s newest play as he examines whether one can ever truly be ready for parenthood.

Scenic Design | Alexander Dodge

Costume Design | Gabriel Berry

Lighting Design | Philip Rosenberg

Sound Design | Alex Neumann

Original Music | Michael Friedman

Production Stage Manager | Jillian M. Oliver

© [graphic design] Art Direction and design by Iris A. Brown Design, IABDNY.com. Illustration by Kristin R. Spix Design. For WTF 2009

[ ... ]