David Kennedy, Westport Country Playhouse associate artistic director, will direct “Dinner with Friends” in June at the Playhouse. Photo by Larry Merz
The Pulitzer Prize-winning comic drama, “Dinner with Friends” by Connecticut’s own Donald Margulies, is announced as the second production in the 2010 season at Westport Country Playhouse. “Haunting and beautifully truthful, surprising in its insights, ‘Dinner with Friends’ is the perfect play to round out our season of five completely different experiences at the Playhouse,” said Mark Lamos, Westport Country Playhouse artistic director.
Scheduled for June 1 through June 19, “Dinner with Friends” will be directed by David Kennedy, Playhouse associate artistic director.
“Dinner with Friends” is about Gabe & Karen and Tom & Beth, two couples who have been close friends for years, and who participate in all the familiar and comfortable rituals of shared vacations, good conversation and great food. When Tom abruptly walks out on Beth, it threatens more than just their marriage alone. This vibrant and edgy contemporary play explores the difficulties of one couple surviving the other pair’s divorce.
“I love this play. It's funny, moving, touching, and deeply felt. A finely wrought exploration of the way we think about each other,” said Lamos. “It's about the way we think we know our closest friends, our spouses and, more importantly, ourselves. And how wrong we can be.”
Lamos added, “Like the plays of Ibsen, it uncovers an unspoken truth inside the psyches of a group of people living supposedly fulfilled, happy lives. It's a play about perception, and it's a play about love, and it's a play about time ... and the changes time wrings on relationships. How we love each other differently than we used to.”
In addition to the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, “Dinner with Friends” also received an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination. The play premiered at the 1998 Humana Festival of New American Plays and opened in New York in 1999.
The New York Times claimed the play is “splendid...extremely smart...a deceptively straightforward suburban comedy...the sort of cozy play that was once the staple of Broadway...wry and keenly observed.” New York Magazine said, “...entertainment as succulent as it is sobering.”
“It's tremendously gratifying that we will finally be producing a work by Donald Margulies, one of America's finest playwrights---who just happens to be a Connecticut native,” stated Lamos. “He's having a big year at the moment, with two plays of his being done in New York as of this writing. We're proud to be a part of it.”
Margulies’ works include “Time Stands Still,” which will have its Broadway premiere on January 28, 2010; and "Collected Stories,” which is set for a Broadway revival this spring. Other plays are “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment — The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself),” “Brooklyn Boy” and “Sight Unseen.” “Sight Unseen” and “Collected Stories” were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He also wrote “Two Days,” “God of Vengeance,” adapted from the classic Yiddish drama by Sholem Asch, “The Model Apartment” (Obie Award), “The Loman Family Picnic,” “Found a Peanut,” “Luna Park” and “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” Margulies is the recipient of the 2000 Sidney Kingsley Award for outstanding achievement in the theater by a playwright and is a member of the council of the Dramatists Guild of America. He teaches playwriting at Yale University and lives in New Haven. He attended Purchase College where he majored in visual arts.
This production will mark the Westport Country Playhouse directing debut of Associate Artistic Director David Kennedy. Kennedy joined the Playhouse in March 2009 and most recently served as associate artistic director at Dallas Theater Center. He is a founding artistic director of The Lunar Society in Toronto and Milkman Theatre Group in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was artistic director of The Summer Cabaret in New Haven. Kennedy was the assistant director on the Tony-winning musical “Urinetown” for Dodger Theatricals/The Araca Group. He is a former Phil Killian Fellow at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a Drama League Directing Fellow and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.
“I'm excited that David’s inspired craft and unique mind will guide the performance,” commented Lamos. “Many in our audience have already become acquainted with David through his insightful Sunday Symposiums and his interview with playwright David Hare during the run of Hare's ‘The Breath of Life.’ David is also responsible for the brilliant program notes on each production.”
The performance schedule is Tuesday at 8 p.m., Wednesday at 2 and 8 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Special series feature A Taste of Tuesdays, Previews, Opening Nights, Thursday TalkBack, Sunday Symposium and Backstage Pass.
Westport Country Playhouse’s five-play 80th season will open with the enchanting musical comedy, “She Loves Me,” April 20 through May 8, with book by Joe Masterhoff, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and directed by Mark Lamos, Playhouse artistic director. “Dinner with Friends” will play next, June 1 through 19. “Happy Days” by Samuel Beckett, a play of luminous beauty and rare power, will run July 6 through July 24, directed by Lamos. The joyful and touching musical, “I Do! I Do!,” will be staged August 10 through August 28, written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. A timeless and powerful classic, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” by Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett, adapted by Wendy Kesselman, will play September 28 through October 16.
Subscriptions to all five plays are available for preferred seating and pricing. Single tickets range from $35 to $55; opening night tickets, including post-performance reception, are $65. Students and educators are eligible for 50% discounts. Groups of 10 or more save up to 30%. For group sales information call (203) 227-5137, x120.
About the Playhouse
Westport Country Playhouse, a not-for-profit theater, serves as a treasured home for the performing arts and is a cultural landmark for Connecticut. Under the artistic direction of Mark Lamos and management direction of Michael Ross, the Playhouse creates quality productions of new and classic plays that enlighten, enrich and engage a diverse community of theater lovers, artists and students. The Playhouse’s rich history dates back to 1931, when New York theatre producer Lawrence Langner created a Broadway-quality stage within an 1830s tannery. The Playhouse quickly became an established stop on the New England “straw hat circuit” of summer stock theatres. Now celebrating its 80th season, Westport Country Playhouse has produced more than 700 plays, 36 of which later transferred to Broadway, most recently the world premiere of "Thurgood" and a revival of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" with Paul Newman, and in earlier years "Come Back, Little Sheba" with Shirley Booth, "The Trip to Bountiful" with Lillian Gish, and "Butterflies Are Free" with Keir Dullea and Blythe Danner. For its artistic excellence, the Playhouse received a 2005 Governor's Arts Award and a 2000 "Connecticut Treasure" recognition. It was also designated as an Official Project of Save America's Treasures by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is entered on the Connecticut State Register of Historic Places. Following a multi-million dollar renovation completed in 2005, the Playhouse transformed into a year-round, state-of-the-art producing theater, which has preserved its original charm and character. In addition to a full season of theatrical productions, the Playhouse serves as a community resource, presenting educational programming and workshops; a children's theater series; symposiums; music; films; and readings.
For more information or ticket purchases, call the box office at (203) 227-4177, or toll-free at 1-888-927-7529, or visit 25 Powers Court, off Route 1, Westport. Tickets may be purchased online at www.westportplayhouse.org.
