Tony Award-winning actor Jason Alexander has signed on to direct the L.A. premiere of Sam Shepard's The God of Hell, which will run at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles from June 20th through July 30th.Casting has not yet been announced for the play, which is billed as a "wild ride through the contemporary American political landscape. The God of Hell presents darkly humorous proof that creative anger can be positively cathartic. Here the Pulitzer Prize-winning Shepard takes us to rural Wisconsin where we meet Frank and Emma, a politically out-of-touch farming couple that are about to have their world rocked out of complacency. The story unfolds revealing two unwelcome visitors to be part of a political plot involving military secrets, torture, and mysterious blue sparks. And that's only the crust of the biscuit. This is a scathing indictment of the invasion of old-time America by a cruel new America. The God of Hell offers a healthy dose of hysterical political farce that will make you nostalgic for the good old Cold War. "As God of Hell, the play was previously seen at New York's Actors Studio Drama School Theatre in a world premiere production with
Randy Quaid, J. Smith-Cameron, Frank Wood and Tim Roth, and at the Donmar Warehouse in London.
Alexander won a 1989 Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for taking on various roles in Jerome Robbins' Broadway--among them, Fiddler on the Roof's Tevye and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum's Pseudolus. The actor, who starred as Max Bialystock in the Los Angeles company of The Producers, also appeared on Broadway in Accomplice, Neil Simon's Broadway Bound, The Rink and the original production of Merrily We Roll Along (in which he played producer Joe Josephson).Shepard, who is esteemed as one of America's preeminent playwrights, has penned works such as True West, Curse of the Starving Class, Fool for Love and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child. As an actor, he has appeared in films such as The Right Stuff, Crimes of the Heart and Steel Magnolias; he recently made his theatrical acting return off-Broadway in Caryl Churchill's A Number.
David Mamet's Boston Marriage, with Rebecca Pidgeon, Mary Steenburgen and Alicia Silverstone, is currently running at the Geffen through March 12. It will be followed by a limited run of Oscar and the Ladyin Pink, with Angela Lansbury, from March 10th through 12th and a production of All My Sons, starring Len Cariou, Neil Patrick Harris and Laurie Metcalf, from April 11th through May 21st.The Geffen Playhouse is located at 10886 Le Conte Avenue in Westwood, CA. To order tickets, call (310) 208-5454 or visit www.geffenplayhouse.com.
