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Clippings:
The Plays on and off the Stage

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TABLE of CONTENTS
a. The Shaw Season at Niagara	e. Shaw in Germany
b. The Shaw Season in Chicago	f. Shaw in Austria and Switzerland
c. The Shaw Season in New York	g. Shaw in England
d. More Shaw in the United States
REVIEWS Click the icon
Androcles and the Lion	Bettina Boecker
The Devil’s Disciple	Felicia Bonaparte

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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). We can also mention Lady Gregory’s Kiltartan Comedies (20th June to 6th October), The Cassilis Engagement by St John Hankin, and Feydeau’s Hotel Peccadillo.

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

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b) Shaw in Chicago

No Shaw plays currently on the boards but here are two items from their outreach programme:

Performance	Show Dates	Location	Show Times	Information
Shaw vs. Shakespeare: A Meeting of the Minds	January 12, 2008	Chicago Shakespeare Theatre	12pm	Open to the Public
Shaw vs. Shakespeare: Love and Passion	February 10, 2008	Indian Trails Library	2pm	Open to the Public

The last Shaw production was Getting Married, 17th November to 10th December 2007

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c) The Shaw Season 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/.




Also in New York: The Irish Repertory Theatre (132 West 22nd St.) will continue its twentieth season with The Devil's Disciple, directed by Tony Walton. Performances began on 5th December 2007 and the run has been extended to 10th February. 

Tony Walton has directed and designed for the Irish Rep The Importance of Being Earnest, Major Barbara and the U.S. premiere of Noël Coward's After the Ball. He has also directed and designed the smash hit revival of Where's Charlie? for the Goodspeed Opera House, Oops! The Big Apple Circus Stage Show for a 60 city U.S. tour and directed Noël Coward's A Song at Twilight for Bay Street Theatre, Gen LeRoy's Missing Footage for San Diego's Old Globe and recently staged Orson Welles' Moby Dick - Rehearsed, for East Hampton's John Drew Theatre for whom he also directed a number of star-studded readings. For the past 50 years Tony Walton has been designing settings and costumes for theatre and film. He was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1991.

The cast includes Jenny Fellner, Curzon Dobell, Sean Gormley, Cristin Milioti, Craig Pattison, Lorenzo Pisoni, Darcy Pulliam, Robert Sedgwick, John Windsor-Cunningham, and Richard B. Watson. Associate Set Designer is Heather Wolensky, co-costume designer is Rebecca Lustig, lighting design is by Brian Nason, sound design by Zach Williamson, wig and hair design by Robert-Charles Vallance, properties by Deirdre Brennan, fight direction Rick Sordelet, dialects Stephen Gabis, casting by Deborah Brown. Christine Lemme Stage Manager, Jonathan Donahue Assistant Stage Manager. Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director, Ciarán O'Reilly, Producing Director, Patrick A. Kelsey, Managing Director.

Performances of The Devil's Disciple are Wednesday - Saturday at 8 PM. Matinees are Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 3 PM. Tickets are $60 and $55 and can be purchased by calling The Irish Repertory Theatre Box Office at (212) 727-2737. For more information, call (212) 727-2737 or visit http://www.irishrep.org/. For a review of this production by Felicia Bonaparte, please click here.

Also in the United States, at the Asolo Theatre in Florida, from 15th February is Jeffrey Hatcher’s play Smash, based on Shaw’s An Unsocial Socialist.

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d) More Shaw in the United States

New Jersey Rep presents a new romantic comedy by John Morogiello about the courtship of George Bernard Shaw. Ames Adamson, Katrina Fergusson, Helen Mutch and Marc Geller comprise the ensemble. Set design by Charles Corcoran; lighting design by Jill Nagle; sound design by Merek Royce Press; costume design by Patricia E. Doherty. Langdon Brown directs. Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets: NJ Rep, 179 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ, 732-229-3166, www.njrep.org. Opening night: Saturday, 15th March 2008, 8:00 p.m.

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e)  Shaw in Germany

(Notes kindly supplied by Lucia Krämer and Barbara Pfeifer)

Androklus und der Löwe (Androcles and the Lion)

Residenz Theater München
1st, 5th, 12th, 16th, 20th, 23rd October 2007

Director: Dieter Dorn Decor: Dieter Dorn, Gotthard Wulff Costumes: Monika Staykova Music: Rudolf Gregor Knabl With Anna Riedl, Lisa Wagner, Rudolf Waldemar Brem, Burchard Dabinnus, Matthias Eberth, Maximilian Löwenstein, Thomas Loibl, Oliver Nägele, Felix Rech, Arnulf Schumacher, Michael Tregor, Rudolf Wessely, Stefan Wilkening and the Kung Fu Academy Berlin Bambang Tanuwikarja and Benjamin Schiegl.

For a review of this production by Bettina Boecker, please click here.

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My Fair Lady Theater Dortmund Director: Michael Jurgons Musical Director: Ralf Lange Opened 1st September, 16th, 22nd September; 7th, 12th, 19th, 31st October; 5th , 17th, 21st, 25th November, 9th, 21st, 30th December 2007

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My Fair Lady
Opernhaus Chemnitz
Musical Director: Heinz Meißner
Director: Michael Heinicke
Décor: Stefan Wiel
Costumes: Astrid Wiel
Choreography: Peter Schache

With Sylvia Schramm-Heilfort / Muriel Wenger (Eliza Doolittle), Matthias Otte (Henry Higgins), Roland Glass (Oberst Pickering), Matthias Winter (Alfred P. Doolittle), Andreas Kindschuh (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Heidrun Göpfert (Mrs. Eynsford-Hill), Donna Morein (Mrs. Pearce), Anne-Else Paetzold / Monika Straube (Mrs. Higgins)

3rd April, 23rd May 2008

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f)  Shaw in Austria and 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

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g)  Shaw in England

ST JOAN

A Platform Talk by Michael Holroyd Olivier Theatre, National Theatre Tuesday, 23 July, 2007 at 6.00pm

We cross-post this report by Frances Hughes, which appeared in The Irvingite (The Irving Society Newsletter) No 41 - November 2007.

It was Hesketh Pearson who said that wit, good nature and gaiety of spirit were the qualities he most admired. If you add erudition these were the qualities apparent in Sir Michael’s Holroyd’s Platform Talk on Shaw and St Joan. In the space of thirty-five minutes he veered from Mahomet to Lawrence of Arabia and brought St Joan and Shaw’s perception of her into the 21st century. It is over seven years since GBS was performed at the National Theatre. Why have we not seen Too True To Be Good (before it’s Too Late) or, more provocatively, Shaw’s adaptation of a play by Siegfried Trebitsch that GBS called Jitta’s Atonement? If Arnold Bennett approved it, so should a National audience! However, we have a revival of St Joan, ‘GBS’s Passion Play’. T. S. Eliot did not approve of the heroine and called her ‘a middle class reformer’ comparable to Mrs Pankhurst. Shaw may have had in his mind when writing of his heroine the games mistress and cricketer, Mary Hankinson whom the Shaws met at the Fabian Summer Schools running the early sessions of Swedish Drill. Shaw perceived Joan as ‘the Outsider’. A male counterpart was Lawrence of Arabia who changed his name to ‘Aircraftman Shaw’. Sybil Thorndike was the first St Joan in 1924. Shaw read the play to her in three hours and three minutes. He agreed to cut it—to three hours. She said it contained ‘All the things the world wants to hear at the moment’. Sir Michael considers it ‘a tragedy without villains’. He spoke feelingly about the play’s modern relevance. What is worse—dictatorship or indifferent democracy? We, too, would have burned Joan today. It is Shaw’s only tragedy though he had to lighten it with an Epilogue—a ‘bedroom cabaret’, a Shavian revue sketch but with a soldier saint straight from Hell redeemed for a day every year for giving Joan a cross of sticks as she burned. Shaw, with St Joan, reached the height of his fame, but ‘Woe unto me when all men praise me’. If he is less popular now a renaissance is at hand and Michael Holroyd’s eloquence and humour ensured that his audience would rush to see St Joan. He was asked if he had seen it yet and if so, what did he think? He replied no but he was going that night and that it was very good.

Major Barbara, directed by Nicholas Hytner, opens at the National Theatre in London on 4th March 2008 with Simon Russell Beale as Andrew Undershaft.
Pygmalion opens at the Theatre Royal, Bath, 28th April to 3rd May 2008 before moving to the Old Vic in London, where it will open on 15th May.		Director Design Lighting Costume Sound Tim Pigott-Smith Michelle Dockery Tony Haygarth Pamela Miles Una Stubbs	Peter Hall Simon Higlett Peter Mumford Christopher Woods Gregory Clarke Henry Higgins Eliza Doolittle Alfred Doolittle Mrs Eynsford Hill Mrs Pearce

We also note the following amateur productions in February 2008:
12th- 23rd Sat. matinee	My Fair Lady York Light Opera Company	Theatre Royal, York
26th – 1st March Sat. matinee	My Fair Lady Ware Operatic Society	Castle Hall, Hertford
18th – 23rd	Pygmalion Prestwich Amateur Dramatic & Operatic Society	Pados Studio Theatre, Prestwich

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