Guare's FREE MAN OF COLOR Gets $100,000 Grant for LCT Production this Fall

Variety reports today that John Guare's FREE MAN OF COLOR, which will premiere at Lincoln Center next season, is the recipient of a $100,000 grant from National Actors Theater Foundation. The Tony Randall Theatrical Fund has granted Lincoln Center an additiona, undisclosed amount of money to help support it's production of non-profit shows. Both organizations are run by late actor Tony Randall's daughter, Heather.

According to the report, FREE MAN was singled out due to its troubled early development.  The show had been slated to make its premiere at The Public Theatre last season, but was abruptly cancelled after funding fell out. Heather Randall was impressed by both the project's concept and creative team. The show will begin performances at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre On October 21, 2010.

A FREE MAN OF COLOR is a freewheeling epic set in 1802 New Orleans. Jacques Cornet, the title character, is a new world Don Juan and the wealthiest inhabitant of this sexually charged and racially progressive city. Jacques thinks all is well in his paradise until history intervenes, setting off a chain of events which no one, much less this free man of color, realizes is about to splinter the world.

A FREE MAN OF COLOR marks John Guare's return to Lincoln Center Theater where his plays The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, Four Baboons Adoring The Sun (all three nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play) and Chaucer in Rome, were produced. His other plays include Rich and Famous, Landscape of the Body, Marco Polo Sings A Solo, Bosoms and Neglect, Lydie Breeze, Women and Water, A Few Stout Individuals and His Girl Friday. He won a Tony Award for the book of the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona and also wrote the book for the musical Sweet Smell of Success. Director George C. Wolfe will make his LCT debut with this production. Former Artistic Director of The Public Theater, his Broadway directorial credits include Caroline or Change, Topdog/Underdog, Elaine Stritch At Liberty, Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in Da' Funk, The Tempest, On the Town, The Wild Party, Jelly's Last Jam and Angels in America. His film credits include Lackawanna Blues and Nights in Rodanthe.

LCT productions scheduled for the 2010-2011 season include Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, a new musical based on the film by Pedro Almovódar, with book by Jeffrey Lane, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and direction by Bartlett Sher which will begin performances Saturday October 2 at the Belasco Theatre, and, in a co-production with the National Theatre of Great Britain, War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo and adapted by Nick Stafford with direction by MariAnne Elliott and Tom Morris, beginning performances Thursday, March 17, 2011 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. .

Lincoln Center Theater is currently celebrating its 25th year with a season consisting entirely of new work. This fall LCT presented the New York and world premieres of Nathan Louis Jackson's Broke-ology, directed by Thomas Kail, Sarah Ruhl's In The Next Room or the vibrator play, directed by Les Waters, and Anne Marie Healy's What Once We Felt, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. This spring, LCT is producing the American premiere of Andrew Bovell's When The Rain Stops Falling, directed by David Cromer through April 18 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and the LCT3 productions of Graceland a new play by Ellen Fairey, directed by Henry Wishcamper (May 3 - May 29), and On The Levee a play with music, conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet, play by Marcus Gardley and music and lyrics by Todd Almond (June 14 - July 10). LCT's Tony Award winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, directed by Bartlett Sher, continues its record-breaking run in the Vivian Beaumont Theater through Sunday, August 22. For more information, visit http://lct.org/.

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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