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The Plays on and off the Stage

JUNE 2008

TABLE of CONTENTS

a. Shaw Season at Niagara

e. Shaw in Sarasota

b. Shaw in Chicago

f. Shaw in New Jersey

c. Shaw in New York

g. Shaw in Austria and Switzerland

d. Shaw in Berkeley

h. Shaw in England

a) The Shaw Festival

The 2008 Season includes Mrs Warren’s Profession (6th July to 1st November) and Getting Married (11th April to 1st November).

The 2007 Season included The Philanderer (1st May to 7th October) and St Joan (21st April to 27th October).

The 2006 season included Arms and the Man and Too True to be Good.

b) Shaw in Chicago

No Shaw plays currently on the boards but we will keep watch.

c) Shaw in New York

The Gingold Theatrical Group, directed by David Staller, is giving a reading of a Shaw play at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South every month.

More information can be found at http://projectshaw.com/

d) Shaw in Berkeley

The Shotgun Players staged Mrs Warren’s Profession at the Ashby Theatre, Berkeley, California, 19th March to 20th April 2008.

e) Shaw (more or less) in Sarasota, Florida

Richard Dietrich circulated this report on 28th February 2008:

‘Lori and I have just come from seeing Jeffrey Hatcher's SMASH at the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, , a rollicking play based loosely on Shaw's last completed novel, AN UNSOCIAL SOCIALIST (1883).    I wondered at first why Hatcher moved the setting of the play to 1910, but it soon became evident that he has attempted something rather clever here.   The characters and situations of 1883 have been moved to 1910 to reflect Shaw's own movement in thinking on its subject matter, as particularly manifested in MAJOR BARBARA.   There are times in this play when you think it's Andrew Undershaft speaking up on that stage, certainly a more worthy opponent for Trefusis than the other characters in the novel.  What this sets up, thus, is a rather interesting and powerful dialectic between the Shaw of the 1880s with the Shaw at the end of the Edwardian Era who had created a number of questioning plays and was about to resign from the Fabian Exectuvie.   It's played mostly for laughs (and well played in that regard), but Hatcher allows some of the underlying seriousness to come through as well.   This production gains some resonance from the fact that it's paired with DOUBT, and the actor who plays Trefusis one night plays the accused priest the next.   Worth seeing, separately or in tandem.’

f) Shaw (more or less) in New Jersey

NJ Rep Presents Engaging Shaw, A Delightfully Unromantic, Romantic Comedy by John Morogiello
with excerpts from Bernard Shaw. 13th March – 13th April 2008.

‘Of all the great love stories in literary history, the pairing of playwright George Bernard Shaw and Charlotte Payne Townshend may rank as the very least romantic. But when it comes to laughs, the lovebird Brownings and their ilk can’t hold a candle to the blazing wit and comic poignancy of the unconventional Irish couple whose unlikely match is the centerpiece of the new play, Engaging Shaw by John Morogiello.

‘Shaw was a character as full of contradictions as any he created for the stage: celibate womanizer, irascible optimist, a Socialist with a sense of humor. On the subject of marriage, however, Shaw was absolute: he would have none of it, ever, in spite of his wild popularity with women in general and his friend Beatrice Webb’s matchmaking efforts in particular. “It would take immobility! Broken bones! All the powers of hell!”  When Webb and her husband Sidney invite the wealthy Charlotte for a visit, hoping for financial support for their fledgling school of economics, Shaw and the heiress collide, collude, and clash by turns along a circuitous path to partnership.’

Directed by Langdon Brown, Engaging Shaw features Ames Adamson as Shaw, Katrina Ferguson as Charlotte, Marc Geller as Sidney Webb, and Helen Mutch as Beatrice. Stage manager is Rose Riccardi; lighting design by Jill Nagle; scenic design by Charles Corcoran; costume design by Patricia E. Doherty; sound design by Merek Royce Press with assistance by Kevin Siwoff; properties by Jessica Parks; technical director is Quinn Stone.

g) Shaw in Austria & Switzerland

Barbara Pfeifer supplies this information:

The 2007-2008 season on the German-speaking stage has already seen two new productions of the Pygmalion-based Loewe/Lerner musical My Fair Lady. While the Landestheater Linz (Austria) transfers the story to a cinematic setting, with Higgins directing and Eliza starring in a remake of the notorious movie, thus ‘mixing A Chorus Line with My Fair Lady’ (Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, 16th October 2007), the innovative rendition of the Stadttheater Bern centers around a migration context, which ‘re-invests the musical with its socio-political message’ (Der Bund, 15th October 2007).

My Fair Lady

Premiere: 14th October 2007

Landestheater Linz, Großes Haus

6th, 8th, 9th, 27th February; 5th, 26th April; 6th, 8th, 10th, 28th; 6th, 13th June; 4th July 2008

Eliza Doolittle

Julia Klotz

Henry Higgins

Martin Achrainer

Colonel Pickering

Hans-Günther Müller

Alfred P. Doolittle

Klaus-Dieter Lerche

Freddy Eynsford Hill

Mark Calvert

Mrs. Higgins

Karen Robertson

Mrs. Pearce

Gabriele Salzbacher

Mrs. Eynsford Hill

Elisabeth Braun

Marc Reibel/Alexander Hannemann

Music

Jochen Ulrich

Director & Choreography

Renate Schuler

Set Design

Bjanka Ursulov

Costume Design

h) Shaw in England

Major Barbara, directed by Nicholas Hytner, opened at the National Theatre in London on 4th March 2008 with Simon Russell Beale as Andrew Undershaft.

Snobby Price	Paul Anderson
Charles Lomax	Tom Andrews
Barbara Undershaft	Hayley Atwell
Bill Walker	Ian Burfield
Jenny Hill	Katharine Burford
Bilton	Martin Chamberlain
Peter Shirley	Patrick Drury
Sarah Undershaft	Jessica Gunning
Stephen Undershaft	John Heffernan
Lady Britomart Undershaft	Clare Higgins
Morrison	Derek Howard
Rummy Mitchens	Stephanie Jacob
Mrs Baines	Maggie McCarthy
Adolphus Cusins	Paul Ready
Undershaft	Simon Russell Beale
Nicholas Hytner	Director
Tom Pye	Set Designer
Vicki Mortimer	Costume Designer
Paul Pyant	Lighting Designer
Matthew Scott	Music
Mike Walker	Sound Designer

Pygmalion was staged at the Theatre Royal, Bath, 28th April to 3rd May 2008 before moving to the Old Vic in London, where it opened on 15th May. It will run to 9th August.

Henry Higgins	Tim Pigott-Smith
Colonel Pickering	James Laurenson
Eliza Doolittle	Michelle Dockery
Alfred Doolittle	Tony Haygarth
Freddie Eynsford-Hill	Matt Barber
Mrs Higgins	Barbara Jefford
Mrs Eynsford Hill	Pamela Miles
Clara Eynsford Hill	Emma Noakes
Mrs Pearce	Una Stubbs
Peter Hall	Director
Simon Higlett	Design
Peter Mumford	Lighting
Christopher Woods	Costume
Gregory Clarke	Sound

Michael Friend Productions are touring The Millionairess:

25th - 27th July Shaw's Corner, Ayot St Lawrence at 6.30pm; 30th July - 2nd August Sarah Thorne Theatre Club at Broadstairs Memorial Theatre, Wednesday to Saturday at 7.30pm Matinee Saturday at 2.30pm; 4th - 6th September Mill Studio, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford at 8pm; 17th - 18th September Opera House, Buxton at 7.30pm.

We also note the following amateur production in June 2008:

My Fair Lady, The Farnham Amateur Operatic Society. The Maltings, Farnham 10th-14th June

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