Sher and Yeargan Discuss Awake and Sing! at LCT, April 20

By: Apr. 07, 2006
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 Lincoln Center Theater's Platform Series, a forum for public discussion between Lincoln Center Theater artists and interested theatergoers, will continue its 2005-2006 season on Thursday, April 20, at 6:30 pm with a pre-performance talk with Bartlett Sher and Michael Yeargan, the respective director and set designer of LCT's new production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! 

 Platform Series events take place between 6:30 pm to 7:15 pm, in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theater (150 West 65th Street). Admission is free and open to all; however, seating in the lobby is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis only, beginning at 6:00 pm. (Speakers and schedules are subject to change. Call 212-362-7600 to confirm on the day of the event.). 

 Sher received 2005 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for his direction of Lincoln Center Theater's The Light in the Piazza. He also directed the New York productions of Waste (2000 Obie Award Best Play), Cymbeline (2001 Callaway Award for Best Direction, Lortel and Drama Desk nominations, and first American Shakespeare production presented at the Royal Shakespeare Company), Don Juan, Pericles (BAM and TFANA). He is the Artistic Director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre and has directed many productions there. Upcoming New York productions include Barber of Seville at The Metropolitan Opera, and South Pacific at LCT.

Michael Yeargan won both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his designs for LCT's The Light in the Piazza, Outer Critics Circle Award nomination). On Broadway, he has also designed: The Ritz, Bad Habits, Hay Fever; Ah, Wilderness!, and Athol Fugard's A Lesson From Aloes. he has designed off-Broadway, in London, and at Canada's Stratford Festival. His opera credits Otello, Ariadne auf Naxos, Cosi Fan Tutti, Don Giovanni, Susanna, The Great Gatsby and their upcoming Barber of Seville for Metropolitan Opera; Norma, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, La Finta, Giardiniera, and Central Park for NY City Opera. He is a professor of Stage Design at the Yale School of Drama. 

Awake and Sing! began performances Friday, March 24th on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre (111 West 44 Street), the very theatre where the play had its world premiere in 1935. Opening night is scheduled for Monday, April 17th. Lincoln Center Theater's production will celebrate playwright Odets' Centenary.

Lauren Ambrose ("Six Feet Under"), Mark Ruffalo (films such as 13 Going on 30, off-Bway's This is Our Youth), Ben Gazzara (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Jonathan Hadary (All Shook Up, Gypsy), and Zoe Wanamaker (Electra, Piaf) will star in the play, which will also feature Ned Eisenberg (The Green Bird), Peter Kybart (Judgment at Nuremberg, The Diary of Anne Frank), Pablo Schreiber (Mr. Marmalade) and Richard Topol (Julius Caesar, The School for Scandal).

"Awake and Sing!  is the story of a Jewish family in the Bronx who have fallen on hard times during the Depression. Widely considered Odets' masterpiece, the drama premiered on Broadway in 1935 and, a resounding hit, was the legendary Group Theatre's first Broadway production," according to press notes.

 Lincoln Center Theater's platform series was introduced in the summer of 1998. Transcripts of the previous talks are available on-line at www.lct.org, as is ticket information for Awake and Sing!

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