THE COVER OF LIFE to Open This Spring at The Gene Frankel Theater

Tickets are now on sale for THE COVER OF LIFE, opening March 8, 2018 at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond Street, NY.

Included below is an interview with the inspiration behind the title role of the show, Kate Miller, as well as past interview information from Ronn. T. Robinson.

Ronn T. Robinson, playwright, originally from Bastrop Louisiana and then moved to New York City in his early 20s. As a struggling actor in the New York Theater circle he began to do some writing. He began to write a story based on his life and the life of his mother Ollie Marzelle Fife. Throughout the years of his early childhood, Ronn described this in an earlier interview in the Hartford Courant:

Originally from Bastrop, Louisiana about 15 miles from the Arkansas state line, in the northeastern part of Louisiana, described by R. T. Robinson It's hilly land, very Faulkneresque: magnolia trees, bayous, very rich land, a lot of red clay. The town has a courthouse square. When the play began to be produced in workshops for two years in the late 1980's and early 1990's, Robinson thought he'd better let his mother read the script. The show particularly shows the way men were treated the in that world. Ronn stated, I wasn't going to change the play based on the response of his mother's thoughts, because he felt he had to be as honest as he could through his writing, but he felt it only fair for his mother to read it. She loved it. Ollie Marzelle Fife thought it was "real good". Ronn always said: mothers are kind.

Throughout his years of writing and poetry of the show that he was creating Robinson found his newfound love for his southern roots. Robinson took a break from his writing and spent some years as a struggling actor and found love. But through hardships with the loss of his life partner, he took a new stab at the show that he was creating, and began to write what he knew. Ronn believed the secret of great Southern writers is being born into a family of interesting, passionate women, and pointed to the great southern writers such as, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner, and described these men as the men who sat around and listened to the women in their lives.

Growing up around women, Robinson described his childhood as time spent with women was an inspiration of his great writing skills. Because women tend to sit around, talk about men, life issues, and of course the gossip of the goings on around town. So, there he was, the fly on the wall, taking in the information pertaining to what was happening during the years of his childhood and then adulthood.

Robinson described that the best way to write a great show is to place one's self in the middle of the living room with the women back in the 1940's and listening to them talk about everything that they choose to talk about.

The Cover of Life began its venture to the New York Stage in the late 1980s and early 1990's when it opened in Florida, Louisiana, and finally at the Hartford Stage in 1993. The show was further developed at the Hartford stage in preparation of the New York City premiere at the American Place Theater in Midtown Manhattan. The show opened at the American Place Theater on October 11, 1994 and closed November 20, 1994.

The Cover of Life will be revived in the loving memory of Ronn T. Robinson, by Ronn's nephew and director/producer Stephen S Miller. Since Stephen was very young, he was inspired by Ronn and inspiration through the text of The Cover of Life, and the story behind the scenes.

Stephen sat down with his mother and learned more of the information with the background of the story behind Ronn and his life.

"I met Ronn in the early 1980's through a dear friend Rodney Armstrong and then life partner of Ronn, and we began a lifelong friendship" Kate Miller says. "When I first met Rodney, he was in a long-term relationship with Rudolpho Sormiento, who passed away of AIDS during the late 1970's, and in the early 1980's Rodney was on a train to his summer home in the Hamptons and met Ronn on the train heading for the Hamptons. Rodney at this point was diagnosed with AIDS, but Rodney and Ronn became partners," Miller describes.

"Rodney passed away in the mid 1980's of AIDS complications, and through the emotional roller coaster, Ronn focused on his performing around New York, teaching English at a college in New York, and writing his show," she says.

"Through the final years of the preparation of the show, Ronn and I spoke frequently and spent much time traveling to the south to see the developments of the show and then we took a trip out to Hartford to see the show in the final stages of development when it opened at the Hartford stage, and then soon after, the American Place Theater," Miller adds.

In the cast are Jill Cook as Kate Miller, Jessica Carillo as Tood Cliffert, Molly Callahan as Sybil Cliffert, Abigail Milner-Sweetser as Weetsie Cliffert, Amy Losi as Aunt Ola, Maia Nero as Addie Mae and Thomas Kalnas as Tommy Cliffert.

The show will be presented at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond Street, New York, NY, for a one month run with a free public preview performance on March 7, 2018 at 8pm, opening night March 8, 2018, 8pm. Please note that the show is not suitable for children under 14.

The show continues: Friday, March 9th * 8PM; Saturday, March 10th * 2PM & 8PM; Sunday, March 11th * 3PM; Wednesday, March 14th * 8PM; Thursday, March 15th * 8PM; Friday, March 16th * 8PM; Saturday, March 17th * 2PM & 8PM; Sunday, March 18th * 3PM; Wednesday, March 21st * 8PM; Thursday, March 22nd * 8PM; Friday, March 23rd * 8PM; Saturday, March 24th * 2PM & 8PM; Sunday, March 25th * 3PM; Wednesday, March 28th * 8PM; Thursday, March 29th * 8PM; Friday, March 30th * 8PM; and Saturday, March 31st * 2PM and 8PM.

For tickets, visit thecoveroflife.brownpapertickets.com.

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