Albee's Peter and Jerry to Kick Off Season at Second Stage
Bill Pullman The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Dallas Roberts A Number, Burn This and Johanna Day Proof have signed on to star in Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry, which adds a first act to The Zoo Story, Albee's celebrated 1958 one-act play. The production, directed by Pam MacKinnon, will run from October 19-December 9, with a mid-November opening. Peter and Jerry, which includes the prequel Homelife, was first presented in 2004 at Hartford Stage in a production directed by MacKinnon and starring Day.
Next to Normal, a new musical with music by Kitt and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, will be directed by Michael Greif Grey Gardens, Rent. Formerly known as Feeling Electric, the show was presented in 2005 at the New York Musical Theater Festival in a production that starred Amy Spanger, Anthony Rapp and Annaleigh Ashford. The plot is described as following a suburban family confronting a long-hidden skeleton in the closet.
Farragut North is a new play by Beau Willimon centering on a press secretary overseeing a politician's bid for a presidential nomination. Variety noted that movie star Jake Gyllenhaal recently starred in a reading of the play. Willimon, who has written seven full-length plays, served on the staff of several political campaigns, including Charles Schumer's 1998 Senate race, Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race and Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential race.
Rounding out the season will be a revival of Some Americans Abroad, Richard Nelson's 1990 play about college students and their professors on a tour of England. Gordon Edelstein, artistic director of New Haven's Long Wharf Theater, will direct. Lincoln Center Theater's original Broadway production of the play at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre starred Nathan Lane, Kate Burton, Frances Conroy, Henderson Forsythe and Elisabeth Shue.