Intiman Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Bartlett Sher and Interim Managing Director Kevin Maifeld, continues its 2008 season with the comedy The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane, directed by Fracaswell Hyman. Performances will begin at the Intiman Playhouse, 201 Mercer Street at Seattle Center, on Friday, August 15 and continue through Saturday, September 13. The opening night performance is Wednesday, August 20 at 7:30 pm. Please see the Fact Sheet at the end of this release for the complete schedule.
Tickets for The Little Dog Laughed range in price from $10 to $48, with discounts available for groups. Patrons aged 25 and under can purchase tickets to any performance for $10, pending availability. A limited number of $20 rush tickets may be available for purchase 15 minutes before curtain time, pending availability. Tickets are available from www.intiman.org or 206.269.1900. This production is sponsored by ArtsFund, 4Culture and Kreielsheimer Remainder Trust.
Douglas Carter Beane's play is a comedy about Hollywood—how it keeps its actors in the closet and its scripts straight—and a biting look at the cost of what passes for happiness in America today. The cast features four natives of Washington State:
Neal Bledsoe as Mitchell, a closeted movie star on the brink of superstardom; Quinlan Corbett as Alex, a tender-hearted hustler who develops a relationship with Mitchell that surprises them both; Megan Hill as Ellen, Alex's girlfriend, who has secrets of her own; and
Christa Scott-Reed as Diane, Mitchell's shark-like agent, whose ambition for her own career drives the story. This production will include nudity and sexual content.
Says Intiman Associate Artistic Director
Craig Lucas, "
Douglas Carter Beane's comedy of manners in a world without manners is fearless and deft in parsing the meaning of happiness in the cruelest most miserable business known to man, that business we like to call Show, which here might well be standing in for America itself."
Douglas Carter Beane received a 2007 Tony Award Best Play nomination for The Little Dog Laughed and a 2008 Tony nomination and Drama Desk Award for his book of the current Broadway musical
Xanadu. His other recent credits include the book for Dancing in the Dark, a new stage adaptation of the MGM musical The Band Wagon, which premiered earlier this year at San Diego's
Old Globe Theatre. His other credits include the play As Bees in Honey Drown and the screenplay for To
Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything
Julie Newmar. He is the Artistic Director of
Drama Dept., a theater company in New York.
Director
Fracaswell Hyman is a Los Angeles-based director, writer and producer. He staged Intiman's 2007 production of To Kill a Mockingbird, which is the best-selling show in the Theatre's history.
Featured in the cast are four natives of Washington State:
Neal Bledsoe earned his BFA from North Carolina School of the Arts and is making his professional stage debut. His television credits include recurring roles on Guiding Light, As the World Turns and All My Children, CSI: NY and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He played a starring role in the CW pilot I'm Paige Armstrong, written and directed by Rod Lurie, and made his film debut as a '40s bohemian in the movie Revolutionary Road, directed by
Sam Mendes.
Quinlan Corbett was previously seen at Intiman in The Play's the Thing, directed by
John Michael Higgins in the 2004 season. He is a graduate of the University of Washington's Professional Actor Training Program, where his credits include Romeo and Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops to Conquer.
Megan Hill has been seen locally in Stupid Kids at The Empty Space; Pride and Prejudice and Howards End for Book-It; Laura's Bush with Washington Ensemble Theatre and several productions directed by Sheila Daniels: Arcadia at Capitol Hill Arts Center, Shock Brigades for Baba Yaga Productions and Trojan Women: A Love Story with Theater Schmeater, among other credits. She received her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts and her MFA from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University and the Moscow
Art Theatre School.
Christa Scott-Reed, a sixth-generation Washingtonian, has appeared Off-Broadway in Pinter's Celebration & The Room and Ionesco's The Bald Soprano & The Lesson at the
Atlantic Theater Company and the world premiere of
Mark Schultz's Deathbed at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, among other productions. Her regional credits include Argonautika, written and directed by
Mary Zimmerman, and Honour with
Kathleen Chalfant at Berkeley Rep and Restoration Comedy and The Food Chain at
The Old Globe. She earned her MFA from
The National Theatre Conservatory.
The creative team includes scenic designer Matthew Smucker, costume designer
Elizabeth Hope Clancy, lighting designer Greg Sullivan and sound designer Joseph Swartz. The New York casting is by
Janet Foster, C.S.A. and the stage manager is Marianne C. Wunch.
For biographies of the company and the creative team please visit www.intiman.org.
Free public events for The Little Dog Laughed include the following:
Spotlight Supper, Wednesday, August 13 at 6 pm: patrons are invited behind the scenes to observe a rehearsal and hear about the production from director
Fracaswell Hyman.
Post-play conversations: Friday, August 22; Saturday, August 23 (matinee); Tuesday, August 26 and Thursday, September 4.
Intiman Book Club, Monday, August 24 at 7 pm: discussion of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Round Six Happy Hour, Friday, September 5 at 6 pm: pre-show food and live music.
Tickets range in price from $10 to $48, with discounts available for groups. Patrons aged 25 and under can purchase tickets to any performance for $10, pending availability. A limited number of $20 rush tickets may be available for purchase 15 minutes before curtain time, pending availability. Tickets are available from www.intiman.org or 206.269.1900.
