Jon Robin Baitz's The Film Society, Starring Euan Morton, Set for Keen Company’s 2013-2014 Season
Tony nominee Euan Morton (Taboo) has signed on to star in Keen Company's off-Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz's 1988 drama The Film Society. Co-starring Roberta Maxwell, the play will begin previews at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row on September 10 and run through October 26, directed by artistic director Jonathan Silverstein. Opening night is set for October 1.
In addition to Morton and Maxwell, The Film Society will feature Gerry Bamman, David Barlow and Mandy Siegfried. Additional casting and designers will be announced shortly.
Set in a South African school for boys in 1970, The Film Society chronicles the struggle of a young teacher to keep politics out of his extracurricular film club. After the school becomes embroiled in an Apartheid controversy, he must decide whether to support his activist colleague or side with the headmaster who can make or break his career. Baitz, the Tony-nominated author of Other Desert Cities, said in a statement, "This is the first revival of any play of mine in New York, and it's fitting that it be the first play I had produced here, a quarter of a century ago." The Film Society was originally presented by Second Stage in 1988 in a production that starred Nathan Lane, Laila Robins and Daniel Gerroll.
Morton is an Olivier, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League award nominee for his performance as Boy George in Taboo. Additional Broadway credits include the 2007 revival of Cyrano de Bergerac and Sondheim on Sondheim. Roberta Maxwell's many Broadway credits include Our Town and Summer and Smoke.
Keen Company's season will continue with a revival of Paddy Chayefsky’s Middle of the Night, also directed by Silverstein, beginning February 11, 2014, and opening March 4. The play is a comedy about a May-December romance in 1950s New York City between an older Jewish widower and a young gentile bride of another man. When they meet and fall in love, their relationship throws their disapproving families into a tizzy. No casting has been announced.
