MTC Explores Brininging McNally's MASTER CLASS to Broadway in Spring 2011 with Tyne Daly

As BroadwayWorld reported last month, the Manhattan Theater Club was in talks to bring the Kennedy Center production of MASTER CLASS, which ran this Spring, starring Tyne Daly to Broadway in the Summer of 2011. The play is aiming for the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in June.

An Equity casting notice released today a new production of MASTER CLASS with Tyne Daly is one of the projects under consideration for MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre for the Spring of 2011. Equity Principle Auditions are set for December 10.  According to the notice, the following roles are open:

Sharon Graham:
AVAILABLE ROLE. 20s. Opera student. Dramatic soprano. Youthful, but full of potential. Well-trained and well-prepared. Soaks up Callas's teaching like a sponge, but she has her own opinions as well. Determined. Audra McDonald won a Tony Award for this role. Also seeking Sharon Graham Understudy.

Tony Candolino:
AVAILABLE ROLE. 20s. Opera student. Tenor. Has a confidence that comes from being good-looking and talented. Accustomed to relying on his charm. Knows his shortcomings, and truly wants to learn from Callas. Also seeking Tony Candolino Understudy.

Sophie De Palma:
AVAILABLE ROLE. 20s. Opera student. Soprano. Timid, perhaps a bit mousey. Eager to please. Impressionable. A young woman who has, heretofore, given more thought to making a pretty sound than to what she is meant to be communicating via song. Also seeking Sophie De Palma Understudy.

Notes: The role of Maria Callas is cast (Tyne Daly). Producers plan to announce Equity Principal Auditions for Maria Callas Understudy, Manny (and Understudy) and Stagehand (and Understudy) at a later date.

Actors are asked to prepare a one-minute selection from an operatic aria, and a one-minute contemporary monologue. 

Joining Tyne Daly as Maria Callas at the Kennedy Center were Jeremy Cohen as Manny, Laquita Mitchell as Second Soprano (Sharon), Ta'u Pupu'a as Tenor (Tony), and Alexandra Silber as First Soprano (Sophie). Master Class ran March 25 - April 18, 2010 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater and was directed by Stephen Wadsworth. The production was part of Terrence McNally's Nights at the Opera, a five-week event featuring three of Terrence McNally's plays performed concurrently on three Kennedy Center stages.

Master Class is Terrence McNally's homage to Maria Callas, world-renowned American-born Greek soprano. Inspired by a series of master classes she conducted at Juilliard, the play depicts the opera diva as she retreats into recollections about the glories, triumphs, and tragedies of her own life and career.

 

Emmy and Tony Award® winning actress Tyne Daly is best known for her work on TV's "Cagney and Lacey" and her performance as Rose in the 1989 Gypsy Broadway revival. She was also Tony®-nominated for her most recent appearance on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole. Her other New York theater appearances include The Butter and Egg Man (NY debut), Mystery School (OCC nomination), and The Seagull. Regional theater credits include She Loves Me, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Queen Of The Stardust Ballroom, Private Ear/Public Eye, Oliver, The Birthday Party, Three Sisters and Come Back Little Sheba (LA Drama Logue Award). Ms. Daly last appeared at the Kennedy Center in the pre-Broadway engagement of Gypsy in 1989.

Playwright Terrence McNally has received four Tony Awards®, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He won an Emmy Award for his television film Andre's Mother in 1990. A year later, he returned to writing for the stage with Lips Together, Teeth Apart. In 1992, Mr. McNally collaborated with John Kander and Fred Ebb on the script for the 1993 Tony Award®-winning musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, as well as on the script for the musical The Rink. Additionally, in collaboration with Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, he wrote the book for the musical Ragtime for which he won the 1998 Tony Award® for Best Book of a Musical. His other plays include Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1994, Corpus Christi in 1997, and the play and screen adaptation of Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune.

Stephen Wadsworth's theater projects include Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy (Berkeley Rep), a much-traveled trilogy of Marivaux plays in his own translations (originating at the McCarter in Princeton and published by Smith and Kraus), the world premieres of Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy (Long Wharf) and Beth Henley's Impossible Marriage (Roundabout), a new version of Molière's Don Juan (Shakespeare Theatre, Seattle Rep, Old Globe), and the Aeschylus Agamemnon with Tyne Daly at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. He has directed opera at La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera, among many other companies, including Seattle Opera, where his famous production of Wagner's Ring cycle played again this summer. He wrote the opera A Quiet Place with Leonard Bernstein (co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center, where he directed it 25 years ago).

The original production of Master Class premiered at the John Golden Theatre on November 5, 1995 and ran for 598 performances. The production won three Tony Awards® including Best Play, Best Actress in a Play, and Best Featured Actress in a Play. Prior to its run on Broadway, Master Class starring Zoe Caldwell and Audra MacDonald appeared at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater from September 14, 1995 - October 22, 1995.