Offering a fresh look at the groundbreaking play that established David Mamet as a seismic force in theater, the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance at California State University, Los Angeles joins forces with multiple award-winning Deaf West Theatre to present American Buffalo. Professor of Theater and longtime Deaf West collaborator Stephen Rothman directs Deaf West regulars Troy Kotsur (Spring Awakening, Cyrano) and Paul Raci (Cyrano, What Are You...Deaf?) along with Cal State L.A. MFA candidate Matthew Ryan Pest for a Feb. 14 opening at the 250-seat State Playhouse on the university campus (just east of downtown).
In American Buffalo, three small-time crooks plan to rob a man of his valuable coin collection, including what they believe to be an extremely valuable Buffalo nickel. A little out of luck and way out of their league when the con goes awry, it's every man for himself in this modern classic that weaves humor and menace throughout an emotionally charged struggle for identity and dominance.
Deaf West Theatre is renowned for casting a mix of deaf and hearing actors in productions performed simultaneously in American Sign Language and spoken English. American Buffalo's highly-charged, naturalistic dialogue lends itself easily to translation into ASL.
"Mamet's rhythms are grounded in the way people actually speak, and they share a close kinship with the ebb and flow of conversational sign language," suggests Deaf West artistic director David J. Kurs. "It's rare to come across a script with language that feels like a natural point of entry into ASL. The way Mamet's characters communicate through broken thoughts and unfinished sentences also reflects the frequent communication gap between deaf and hearing people."
"The play is about isolation," says Rothman. "It speaks to being on the outside looking in."
For Rothman, who previously directed productions of Orphans, Of Mice and Men, What Are You...Deaf? and Pinocchio for Deaf West, this passion project is a long time coming.
"I've wanted to do a Deaf West production of American Buffalo with Troy and Paul for many years," he says. "It was always too expensive, because the entire set gets wrecked every night. Now, by combining our resources in a co-production, we're able to pull it off. More importantly we're bringing professional actors from the Hollywood community to campus to collaborate with our Master of Fine Arts acting candidates in a conservatory-style environment, echoing the
Asolo Repertory Theatre/Florida State University model and the approach used at Yale Rep. Cal State L.A. president William A. Covino is dedicated to community engagement, so this is a truly perfect union."
Also in the cast is Collin Bressie as the voice of Teach (Kotsur). Scenic design is by Ken George; lighting design is by
Michael Gend; sound design is by Joe Cerqua; projection design is by Martín Gimenez; costume design is by Raquel Barreto; the ASL Master is
Linda Bove; and the production stage manager is Jessica Morataya. Meredith Greenburg and David J. Kurs produce for Cal State L.A. and
Deaf West Theatre respectively.
American Buffalo premiered in 1975 at Chicago's
Goodman Theatre Stage Two in a production that launched the career of
William H. Macy. After twelve performances, the production moved to Chicago's St. Nicholas Theatre Company. In February, 1976, American Buffalo opened at St. Clement's in New York, where it received an Obie Award for Best New Play. A year later, it opened on Broadway under the direction of
Ulu Grosbard, garnering the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play of 1977 as well as two Tony and four Drama Desk nominations. New York Times theater critic
Frank Rich hailed it as "one of the best American plays of the last decade." It was revived on Broadway in 1983 with
Al Pacino, and again in 2008 starring
Cedric the Entertainer,
Haley Joel Osment and
John Leguizamo. The play was adapted into a 1996 film featuring
Dennis Franz,
Dustin Hoffman and
Sean Nelson.
Stephen Rothman, a founder and former artistic director of the revitalized
Pasadena Playhouse and former artistic director of the Sacramento Theatre Company, is currently a professor of theater in the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance at Cal State L.A.. His directing career has taken him around the world, including a production of
Harold Pinter's Betrayal in Florence, Italy for the Florence International Theatre Company. His American resident/regional theater credits include more than 100 plays in 16 different states for 40 different companies. He is especially proud of his work on numerous world premieres including Sparky And The Fitz, starring Academy Award winner
Eli Wallach at the
George Street Playhouse in New Jersey; Learn To Fall, starring France's award winning clown/artist Buffo at the
Attic Theatre in Detroit; Gilligan's Island The Musical for Chicago's Organic Theatre; and Father, Son, And Holy Coach for the Santa Monica Playhouse, to name just a few. His most recent directorial work includes his residency in summer 2013 at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts where he directed both Accomplice by
Rupert Holmes and the world premiere of Leap Year by William Coe Bigelow. His theater awards include Florida's Carbonell Award for Best Director for God's Man In Texas at
Florida Stage and a Los Angeles Drama-Logue win for his direction of Orphans for
Deaf West Theatre.
Deaf West Theatre is recognized as the premier sign language theater in the United States. Over the last 25 years, DWT has produced over 40 plays and five musicals, winning more than 80 theater awards including Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre. Last season's production of Spring Awakening ("an emotional triumph" - Los Angeles Times) enjoyed a sold-out run at Inner-City Arts in Downtown L.A. and will transfer to the Wallis
Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in
Beverly Hills this spring. In 2013, Cyrano, a co-production with the Fountain Theatre, received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Production. Deaf West's production of Big River received both Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and Backstage Garland Awards for Best Musical when it premiered in Los Angeles, then transferred to Broadway where it was nominated for two Tony and four Drama Desk Awards. Deaf West was the first intimate theater company in the history of the LA Stage Ovation Awards to win both Best Play (A Streetcar Named Desire) and Best Musical (Oliver!) in the same year (2000). That same year, the company was awarded the distinguished "Polly Warfield Award for Most Outstanding Season" from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. In 2005, DWT was selected to receive the Highest Recognition Award by the Secretary of Health and Human Services for its "distinguished contributions to improve and enrich the culture lives of deaf and hard of hearing actors and theater patrons."
American Buffalo runs Feb. 14 through March 8, with performances on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.* (*please note early curtain time) and Sundays at 2 p.m. Two preview performances take place on Thursday, Feb. 12 and Friday, Feb. 13, both at 7:30 p.m. Performances take place at the State Playhouse located at 5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032 (on the campus of Cal State L.A.). For reservations and information, call (818) 762-2998 (voice) or go to
www.deafwest.org. Recommended for mature audiences.
