Henry Carr

Philadelphia is never lacking outstanding theatre, whether epic Broadway shows, engrossing dramas or bold fringe offerings. BroadwayWorld is rounding up our top recommended theatre every month. This month's offerings include Kinky Boots, Travesties, Annie and more!

Tom Stoppard's 'Earnest'-inspired smartypants play 'Travesties' finishes its run on October 9th at the Lantern Theater.

Leopoldstadt marks the 19th production of a Tom Stoppard play to open on Broadway since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead opened 55 years ago. Stoppard has won four Best Play Tony Awards, more than any other playwright in history. What are the 18 other productions of Tom Stoppard plays to open on Broadway? Let's take a look back!

​​​​​​​Lantern Theater Company will launch its 2022/23 Mainstage Season with Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning comic masterpiece, Travesties.

Lantern Theater Company has announced its upcoming 2022/23 season, a return of live performance that will include an ambitious and eclectic mix of classic and contemporary work for the stage.

Second Thought Theatre has announced their full production of Dry Powder. After a brief, COVID-related slowdown, Dry Powder will serve as the opening production of the 2022 season.

Lantern Theater Company has announced its upcoming 2021/22 season, a return to live performance that will include an ambitious and eclectic mix of classic and contemporary work for the stage.

Lantern Theater Company has announced its upcoming 2020/21 season, which will include an ambitious and eclectic mix of classic and contemporary work for the stage. The five plays that comprise the company's mainstage season include Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning comic masterpiece Travesties; the Philadelphia premiere of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage's satirical Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Philadelphia legend Frank X in Novecento by Italian writer Alessandro Baricco; Robert Bolt's award-winning classic A Man for All Seasons; and William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. The Lantern will also present a remount of its original adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a new holiday tradition co-created by Philadelphia theater artists Anthony Lawton, Christopher Colucci, and Thom Weaver.

Unlike the other the major characters in Travesties, the real Henry Carr holds little claim to fame. Stoppard learned about Carr and became intrigued by a real-life incident mentioned in a biography of James Joyce. In Zurich during World War I, Joyce worked with an English theatre to produce Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Joyce cast a mix of professionals and amateurs, including Henry Carr, an Englishman living in exile, as the lead role of Algernon. Apparently, Carr gave an enthusiastic performance, but afterwards, a small financial dispute with Joyce escalated into dueling lawsuits. Carr sued Joyce for reimbursement on clothes he bought as his costume; Joyce counter-sued Carr for money owed on five tickets. Carr lost his case and was further punished by Joyce when he named an unlikeable character in Ulysses after Carr. Stoppard knew little more about the real Henry Carr while writing Travesties; however, after its 1974 London premiere, a surprise letter from Carr's widow provided more details of the real man's life.

The most honorable of the honorable mentions in 2018's Tony race will likely turn out to be Travesties, Tom Stoppard's 1974 tragifarce which took top Tony honors for Best Play and Best Actor (John Wood) in 1976 and is now putting up a game bid for Best Revival, Best Actor (Tom Hollander) and Best Director (Patrick Marber).

At first glance, Travesties may seem to be a nearly impossible work to crack. Traversing literary styles and references, delving headfirst into the history of World War I and the Russian Revolution, and pitting dense intellectual arguments on the meaning and purpose of art against each other, Tom Stoppard's absurdist and avant-garde play can seem hopelessly out of reach for anyone who isn't an expert in these particular topics. But Stoppard has created a roadmap that allows his audiences to untangle the characters, plotlines, and references of Travesties as they watch, and his first clue for doing so is provided in the title of the play itself. What exactly, then, is a travesty?

Education Dramaturge Ted Sod sits down with actress Sara Topham to discuss her role in Travesties and her return to Roundabout Theatre Company.

Tim Hatley/Costume and Set Design My starting point as a designer is always to read the play, and in the case of Travesties, which is a complex play, it required careful reading and thought to begin to understand the threads and layers of the writing, and talking closely with the director, Patrick Marber. It seemed to me that our production needed a strong yet simple approach to the design. The shifting of time and location is clear in the writing and did not need physical transitions to interrupt the flow. Our space is both present and memory, library and apartment, and allows for characters to appear and disappear within. The costumes are rooted strongly in the period, and their palette was developed in tandem with the development of the space. Cross references to Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest, were an enjoyable anchor to designing the play.

On April 21, 2018, Patrick Marber spoke about Travesties with Education Dramaturg Ted Sod as part of Roundabout Theatre Company's lecture series.

Travesties, a limited engagement through Sunday, June 17, 2018, opened just last night at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street). We're taking you inside the festivities below!

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) - in association with Chocolate Factory Productions (David Babani, Artistic Director) and Sonia Friedman Productions -present the first Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning play Travesties.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) - in association with Chocolate Factory Productions (David Babani, Artistic Director) and Sonia Friedman Productions -present the first Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning play Travesties.

Czech-born British dramatist Tom Stoppard, whose densely intellectual plays may be the most potent argument known for America's need to step up its public education funding, was first noticed on these Atlantic shores in the 1960s for shining a spotlight on two minor Shakespearean characters in ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) - in association with Chocolate Factory Productions (David Babani, Artistic Director) and Sonia Friedman Productions -present the first Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning play Travesties.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) - in association with Chocolate Factory Productions (David Babani, Artistic Director) and Sonia Friedman Productions -present the first Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning play Travesties.