Bobby Cannavale, Alfred Molina and More to Record Plays for LA Theatre Works Season

L.A. Theatre works has announced ten plays for 2012-13, featuring many actors re-creating their original Broadway roles.

Already set is a roster of “A-list” actors including Joe Mantegna, Alfred Molina, Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Annabella Sciorra, Jane Kaczmarek andCharlayne Woodard, all reprising their critically acclaimed roles from original, award-winning productions, and Cherise Boothe, Jane Carr, Stephen Collins, Calista Flockhart,Nicholas Hormann, T.R. Knight, Joshua Malina, Dakin Matthews, Alfred Molina, Josh Stamberg, Thomas Sadoski,Emily Swallow and Steven Weber.

The season will include three important new works: RED byJohn Logan (starring Molina), The Motherf***er with the Hatby Stephen Adly Guirgis (with Cannavale, Rodriguez and Sciorra), and The Nightwatcher, written and performed by Charlayne Woodard; four choice picks from the contemporary theater canon: Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet (starring Joe Mantegna in the role he created), Lips Together, Teeth Apart by Terrence McNally (with Steven Weber), For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (directed by Shirley Jo Finney and featuring OBIE award-winning actress Cherise Boothe), and Kindertransport by Diane Samuel (Jane Kaczmarek reprises her Off Broadway role); and three classical masterpieces: The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (with Calista Flockhart, T.R. Knight, Stephen Collins and Dakin Matthews), Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (featuring Emily Swallow as Roxane), and a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice byCristina Calvit that will also tour nationally (with Jane Carr and Nicholas Hormann).

“It is a joy to offer our audience a theatrical feast of enduring excellence, from such masters of language as Mamet, Guirgis and Ntozake Shange,” says L.A. Theatre Works artistic director Susan Loewenberg. “Plus gorgeous, witty translations of The Seagull by Christopher Hampton and Cyrano by Anthony Burgess—and the chance to see them all stunningly interpreted up close and personal by some of the world’s best actors.”

Recorded live for public radio stations nationwide, L.A. Theatre Works Productions are performed by headline actors using live Foley sound effect artists who bring classic and cutting-edge plays to life without sets or costumes. Presented in the intimate, acoustically vibrant James Bridges Theater on the campus of UCLA, each play is captured for broadcast on L.A. Theatre Works' nationally syndicated radio theater series, distribution on CD, and digital download.

The schedule for the 2012-2013 L.A. Theatre Works season at the James Bridges Theater is as follows:

SEPTEMBER 20-23:
The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, translated by Christopher Hampton, featuring Stephen Collins, Calista Flockhart, T.R. Knight andDakin Matthews
Calista Flockhart, who starred in last season’s opener (A Doll House) returns to L.A. Theatre Works to kick off the 2012-13 season, starring with T.R. Knight in Chekhov’s masterpiece. Set on a country estate by a lake in 19th century Russia, the idyllic locale belies the turbulent passions of its inhabitants. When the famed but aging actress Irina Arkádina returns home with her younger lover, she finds a household overflowing with creativity, fantasies of fame, jealousy and unrequited love.

OCTOBER 18-21:
The Nightwatcher, written and performed by Charlayne Woodard
The subject is motherhood, and no matter how many times she says “no,” actress Charlayne Woodard’s maternal instincts keep getting called into action. A surprise call from a friend with a last-minute adoption opportunity sends this self-described “blue collar actor” into a hilarious litany on the joys of children in our lives. A two-time Obie award-winner and Tony Award nominee, Woodard records her newest award-winning solo show for L.A. Theatre Works, whose catalog already features all of her previous work.

NOVEMBER 15-18:
Pride and Prejudice, adapted by Cristina Calvit from the novel by Jane Austen, featuring Jane Carr and Nicholas Hormann
L.A. Theatre Works celebrates the 200th anniversary of Austen’s classic romantic comedy, one of the most acclaimed and still strikingly modern works of world literature. Cristina Calvit's stage adaptation captures the gentle satire of Austen’s sparkling tale about a family blessed with five daughters and a mother desperate to marry them off. The tempestuous pairing of the witty, independent Elizabeth, and the arrogant but honorable suitor, Mr. Darcy, sets the standard for all great couples of the stage and screen.

DECEMBER 6-9:
Lips Together, Teeth Apart by Terrence McNally, featuring Steven Weber
In a Fire Island beach house, a brother and sister and their respective spouses gather to celebrate the Fourth of July. With food, cocktails, fireworks and stinging barbs, they fortify themselves against their individual anxieties—and their gay neighbors partying in the houses on either side. The New York Times called Lips Together, Teeth Apart, “a work with real teeth and equally penetrating compassion.” Contains adult content and language.

JANUARY 31-FEBRUARY 3:
The Motherf***er with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis, featuring Tony nominees Bobby Cannavale and Elizabeth Rodriguez, and original Broadway cast member Annabella Sciorra
Strap yourself in: this high-octane, verbal cage match about love, fidelity and misplaced haberdashery comes straight from the playwright of Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Den of Thieves and Our Lady of 121st Street. Jackie and Veronica have been in love since the eighth grade. Nothing can come between them—except a hat.

MARCH 14-17:
RED by John Logan, featuring Alfred Molina
Winner of the Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award and six Tony Awards, RED is an intimate glimpse into the world of outspoken and opinionated artist Mark Rothko. Alfred Molina reprises the role he created in London and was Tony-nominated for on Broadway in the drama the Associated Press calls “an engrossing, enthralling new play about art, an artist and the act of creation.”

APRIL 18-21:
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, directed by Shirley Jo Finneyand featuring OBIE Award-winning actress Cherise Boothe
Ntozake Shange’s Tony Award nominated and Obie Award-winning choreopoem is a truly stirring portrait of seven women trapped in their sex, color and consciousness. Each woman’s journey is unique, yet each seamlessly blends with the stories of the other six women to form one, united voice of pride and power. Director Shirley Jo Finney finds the rainbow in Ntozake Shange's poetic, revolutionary and classic play. 

MAY 16-19:
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, featuring Joe Mantegna, Joshua Malina, Thomas Sadoski and Josh Stamberg
Joe Mantegna recreates his Tony Award-winning role in Davis Mamet’s scathingly funny Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about small-time real estate brokers who vie for the hot leads at a Chicago firm selling shoddy properties. With money, egos and jobs on the line, the cut-throat salesmen will stop at nothing to get their fair share of the American Dream. This gritty story of shifting values in the male-dominated workplace is as potent and exhilarating as ever. Winner of the New York Drama Critics Award.

JUNE 20-23:
Kindertransport by Diane Samuel, featuring Jane Kaczmarek
In the last months of World War II, 10,000 Jewish children were voluntarily sent by their parents to the UK to escape the certain death of Nazi concentration camps. Most never saw their parents again. Kindertransport celebrates the heroism and hope that kept these children alive. Jane Kaczmarek reprises the role she created Off Broadway.

JULY 11-14:
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, translated by Anthony Burgess, featuring Emily Swallow
In Edmond Rostand's classic romance, Cyrano is France's greatest swordsman and a distinguished poet, but he is cursed with a grotesquely protuberant nose. Because of his ugliness, he cannot confess his deepest secret - a passionate love for the beautiful Roxane. When the heroine falls in love with Christian, an Adonean but doltish young soldier, Cyrano offers to help him by writing the love-letters, and their beauty wins Roxane's heart.

L.A. Theatre Works has been the foremost producer of radio theater in the United States for more than two decades, bringing the finest recorded dramatic literature into the homes of millions every week. L.A. Theatre Works' syndicated radio theater series airs weekly on public radio stations nationwide, including KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles (98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, 99.5 FM in Ridgecrest/China Lake and on 93.7 FM in Rancho Bernardo/North San Diego); WGBH 89.7 FM, Boston; WBEZ 91.5 FM, Chicago; KUOW 94.9 FM, Seattle;WABE 90.1 FM, Atlanta; KRCB 91.1 FM, North Bay (San Francisco); and in over 100 other markets. Recordings can also be streamed on demand at www.latw.org and are distributed to over 8500 libraries nationwide. The L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection, with over 450 titles, is the largest archive of its kind in the world.

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