Michael Cristofer Stars in Old Wicked Songs at Westport

The Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, Old Wicked Songs by Jon Marans, will be staged at Westport Country Playhouse, October 19 through November 5. 

In addition to being a 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist, Old Wicked Songs was the winner of a New York Drama League Award and L.A. Drama-Logue Award in the same year, and included in Otis Guernsey's Best Plays of 1996-97.

The cast includes Michael Cristofer, a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright for The Shadow Box, and award-winning actor.

"Set in a Vienna music studio in 1986, the characters in Old Wicked Songs are a music professor and his piano prodigy.  The professor is an aging European, technically precise and anti-Semitic.  The piano prodigy is young, brilliant, arrogant, passionate and an American Jew.  Each has an ax to grind and personal demons to slay.  Conflicts in age, personalities and ideals immediately distance the two men.  Through music they are able to communicate, eventually resolving some of their differences, learning respect for one another, and overcoming obstacles in their lives," according to production notes. 

"Laced with laughter and the beautiful music of Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe song cycle, the deeply moving story explores guilt and forgiveness, shame and remembrance, the Holocaust and the healing process through music."

Cristofer, an Obie and Theatre World Award-winner for acting as well as a noted playwright and screenwriter whose screenplays include The Witches of Eastwick, plays Professor Josef Mashkan.  Joe Paulik (Cabaret, Eurydice at Williamstown) plays Stephen Hoffman.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1996, Old Wicked Songs, which premiered at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and played several other American theatres, has been translated and produced in a dozen countries around the world and was the second most performed new play in the United States in the 1997-98 season.  

The director is Loy Arcenas, who will also serve as set designer.  The production team includes Japhe Weideman, lighting designer; Oana Botez-Ban, costume designer; David Gaines, musical director; and Fabian Obispo, sound designer.Playhouse 2006 Season

Following Old Wicked Songs, Westport Country Playhouse's 2006 season continues November 29 through December 23 with Charles Dickens' holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, adapted and directed by Tazewell Thompson and including music from the period. 

Visit www.westportplayhouse.org for tickets and more information.

Photo--Joe Paulik and Michael Cristofer