| Wheelhouse Theater Company Will Present Return Engagement of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Happy Birthday Wanda June 10/18 to 11/29 at The Duke on 42 | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 10:24 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
|
|
|
| WHEELHOUSE THEATER COMPANY TO PRESENT SPECIAL RETURN ENGAGEMENT OF KURT VONNEGUT JR.'s HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE OCTOBER 18th– NOVEMBER 29th AT THE DUKE on 42nd STREET THIS CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED PRODUCTION TAKES A SEARING AND DARKLY COMEDIC LOOK AT TOXIC MASCULINITY THROUGH A BRILLIANTLY PERVERSE LENS. Wheelhouse Theater Company and its Founding Members Matt Harrington, David Kenner, Michael Schantz, and Jeffrey Wise announced today that due to popular demand, the company will stage a special return engagement of Kurt Vonnegut’s rarely produced play HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE October 18th – November 29th at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET® project, 229 West 42nd Street in Manhattan. The New York Times Critics’ Pick production, which garnered unanimous rave reviews this past Spring at the Gene Frankel Theatre, offers up dynamic and often hilarious insight into a capitalist society’s attempts to make socio-cultural progress in a world polarized by its moral and political outrage…or lack thereof. Jeffrey Wise will direct the production that will run through Thursday, November 29th. The official opening is set for Tuesday, October 23rd. For more information, visit http://www.wheelhousetheater.org Wheelhouse Theater Company’s original HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE cast returns for this special engagement and features Craig Wesley Divino (Founder Faultline Theater, Hound of the Baskervilles – Arrow Rock Lyceum), Finn Faulconer (Finding Neverland - 1st National Tour), Matt Harrington (Matilda – Broadway, 1st National Tour, Twelfth Night, Richard III - Shakespeare’s Globe, Harvey - Roundabout Theatre Company), Kareem Lucas (Sole Variations, Walden: Life in the Woods), Kate MacCluggage (Ironbound - Kitchen Theatre Company), Jason O’Connell (Sense & Sensibility – Bedlam), and Charlotte Wise as Wanda June. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE takes a searing and darkly comedic look at American culture through the brilliantly perverse lens of Kurt Vonnegut. After being presumed dead for eight years, respected war veteran and big game hunter, Harold Ryan, returns home and brings with him an old way of thinking, celebrating a Hemingway-esque machismo and American exceptionalism. Harold soon discovers that the society he returns to has made attempts to progress into a more modern, enlightened cultural narrative. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE is a dynamic and often hilarious meditation on toxic masculinity and a capitalistic America's failed attempts at progress cloaked in honor and morality. Simply put, and as the first few lines of the play state, this is a play about men who enjoy killing, and those who don't. According to Director Jeffrey Wise, “Harold Ryan, the play’s protagonist, represents much more than just an overly masculine male energy. He represents a capitalist culture, where “progress” is measured in a linear fashion, based on a certain level of calculable progress and growth. Harold’s behavior, and treatment of virtually anyone he comes in contact with, is a sickness that so insidiously spreads among our culture, and we see it today, more potent than ever, some 48 years after this play was penned. It’s a toxic celebration of death, destruction and domination cloaked in “heroism” and “American democratic values.” HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE first premiered off-Broadway at the Theater de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel) on October 7, 1970, was restaged at the Edison Theatre on Broadway, starring Marsha Mason and Kevin McCarthy and opened December 22, 1970. Scenic Design is by Brittany Vasta, Lighting Design is by Drew Florida, Costume Design is by Christopher Metzger, Sound Design is by Mark Van Hare. The Production Stage Manager is Paula R. Clarkson, Press Representative is Daniel DeMello / DDPR, Production Management is by Drew Francis, and the General Manager/Executive Producer is Visceral Entertainment – Michael Chase Gosselin, Tim Sulka (Off-Broadway – Endangered!, The First Annual Trump Family Special, Midnight at The Never Get). Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is considered one of the most influential American novelists of the 20th Century and is best known for the novels Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions.Vonnegut’s first play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June, had him named Most Promising Playwright. When asked about the origin of the idea for Wanda June, Vonnegut has written: “I once led a Great Books Study Group on Cape Cod and we read and discussed Homer’s Odyssey. I found the behavior of Odysseus after arriving home unexpectedly from the Trojan War hilariously pig-headed and somehow Hemingway-esque. And then I remembered the blowhard father of a girl I dated in high school, who had heard of huge rubies to be found in the Amazon Rain Forest, and wanted to quit his job and go look for them. The rest is history.” Jeff Wise (Artistic Director, Founding Company Member) is a Tony Award-Winning producer, director, actor, and founder of Wheelhouse Theater Company. For Wheelhouse, Jeff has directed Ibsens' An Enemy of the People, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar and the world premiere of DANNYKRISDONNAVERONICAby Lawrence Dial. He co-produced the critically acclaimed world premiere In the Room with Slant Theatre Project. Jeff also produced the critically acclaimed revival of Once on this Island on Broadway. In NYC he has directed productions of Henry IV Part 2, Hamlet, BACK, and Dear Penthouse. Stage credits include Hamlet, Lend me a Tenor, Pajama Game, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, BACK, Three Sisters, Six Degrees of Separation, Bus Stop, and La Ronde. Jeff received his MFA in Acting from New York University. Performances of HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE through October 30th are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm and Sunday at 7pm. Performances November 1st through 20th are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, Thursday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm. Performances after November 20th: 11/21 at 8pm, 11/23 at 8pm, 11/24 at 2pm & 8pm, 11/25 at 2pm & 7pm, 11/26 at 8pm, 11/27 at 8pm, 11/28 at 2pm & 8pm, and 11/29 at 8pm. Tickets will go on sale on September 12, 2018 at wheelhousetheater.org. Tickets are priced $49 - $109. About Wheelhouse Theatre In 2009, NYU Grad Acting classmates Jeffrey Wise, Matt Harrington and David Kennerjoined together to create and produce BACK, loosely based on Shaw’s Back to Methuselah. This production team would later be joined by Michael Schantz to form the genesis of Wheelhouse Theater Company, a process-oriented company driven by a collective curiosity. As artist citizens, Wheelhouse aims to respond to the world through classic, new and devised plays in order to distill socially relevant issues to their essence. From its official inception in February 2016, Wheelhouse, under Artistic Director Jeffrey Wise, has produced Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet and the World Premiere of Lawrence Dial’s In the Room(in collaboration with the Slant Theatre Project), which the NY Times hailed as “solidly smart… thoroughly transporting.” In 2017, Wheelhouse again produced the World Premiere of Dial’s DANNYKRISDONNAVERONICAfollowed by Ibsen’s masterpiece An Enemy of the People, both to critical acclaim. About the Theater: The Duke on 42nd Street The Duke on 42nd Street is a centrally-located black box theater rental that offers smaller scale productions the unique opportunity to perform on famed 42nd Street. Housed within the New 42nd Street Studios, The Duke on 42nd Street is a fully-staffed facility featuring customizable, state-of-the-art seating in various configurations, and full light, sound and support systems. The venue has hosted such companies as Playwright’s Realm, Red Bull Theater, Primary Stages, Transport Group, Theatre for a New Audience, Lincoln Center Theater LCT3, The Royal Court Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Armitage Gone! Dance, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Naked Angels, Classical Theater of Harlem and the National Theatre of Great Britain. Founded in 1990, The New 42nd Street is an independent nonprofit organization charged with the continuous cultural revival of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, building on the foundation of seven historic theaters to make extraordinary performing arts and cultural engagement part of everyone’s life. The New 42nd Street fulfills this purpose by ensuring the ongoing vibrancy of 42nd Street’s historic theaters; supporting performing artists in the creation of their work at the New 42nd Street Studios and The Duke on 42nd Street; creating arts access and education at The New Victory Theater, New York’s premier theater for kids and families; and through the New 42nd Street Youth Corps, its model youth development initiative, which pairs life skills workshops and mentorship with paid employment in the arts for NYC youth. Inspired by the city it serves, The New 42nd Street is committed to the transformational power of the arts. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | American Son Box Office Opens Tomorrow 9/1 - Official_Press_Release 10:31 am EDT 08/31/18 |
| Next: | Elaine May question re. Waverly Gallery - AnObserver 09:06 am EDT 08/31/18 |
| Thread: | |
Time to render: 0.006740 seconds.