Theater News

Broadway Spouses Audra McDonald and Will Swenson Will Costar in A Moon for the Misbegotten

Eugene O’Neill’s classic drama joins Williamstown Theatre Festival’s summer season.

Audra McDonald and Will Swenson headline Williamstown Theatre Festival's summer production of A Moon for the Misbegotten.
Audra McDonald and Will Swenson headline Williamstown Theatre Festival's summer production of A Moon for the Misbegotten.
(© David Gordon)

An array of stars will take part in Williamstown Theatre Festival's 2015 summer season, which was announced yesterday evening from the City Winery stage at WTF’s Annual Gala.

The Main Stage season will open with the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner William Inge's Off the Main Road, directed by Evan Cabnet and starring Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Kyra Sedgwick in her WTF debut. Until 2008 when it was found and reintroduced by the Inge Estate, the play was a lost work among Inge’s canon. Set during the second wave of feminism in America, the story follows the elegant but emotionally fragile Faye Garrit (Sedgwick). She seeks refuge from her husband, a former professional baseball player, by checking in at a run-down resort on the outskirts of St. Louis with her 17-year-old daughter. There they both experience a series of personal, political, and sexual awakenings. Performances will run from June 30-July 19.

Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Stick Fly) then directs the world premiere of Dominique Morisseau's Paradise Blue, running from July 22-August 2. The music-infused drama follows Blue, a gifted trumpeter, who contemplates selling his once-vibrant jazz club in Detroit’s Blackbottom neighborhood to free himself from the demons of his past life.

Husband-and-wife couple Will Swenson (Les Misérables) and six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald (Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill) will close out the Main Stage season in a production of Eugene O’Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten. Directed by Gordon Edelstein with scenic design by Ming Cho Lee, performances will run from August 5-August 23.

On the Nikos Stage, the summer will open with the world premiere Daniel Goldfarb's Legacy, directed by Oliver Butler and starring Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio), Halley Feiffer (The House of Blue Leaves), Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (The Assembled Parties), and Greg Keller (Wit). The play is described as follows: "When renowned novelist Neil Abrams (Bogosian) is panned by The New York Times, he reopens the conversation with his wife Suzanne (Hecht) about starting a family. As Neil copes with feeling increasingly antiquated and culturally irrelevant, and Suzanne begins a relationship with one of Neil's brilliant grad students (Feiffer), the equilibrium of their marriage is threatened." Performances will run from July 1-July 12.

The American premiere of Kinship, written by Carey Perloff and directed by Jo Bonney will follow with a run from July 15-July 25. Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City, The Real Thing) will star as a tightly newspaper editor, who, along with an upstart journalist and an overly-protective mother, unravel when a passionate entanglement turns into an intense power struggle.

The world premiere musical Unknown Soldier will be next on the Nikos Stage, running from July 30-August 9. Featuring a book and lyrics by Daniel Goldstein and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman, the story follows Ellen Rabinowitz, who sets out to understand her past after she discovers an enigmatic photograph while cleaning out her deceased grandmother’s home. Trip Cullman directs.

Chewing Gum Dreams will then run simultaneously with An Intervention, both penned by British playwrights. Written and performed by Michaela Coel, Chewing Gum Dreams recalls the last days of innocence before the onrush of adulthood for a girl from the rough part of a tough city. Mike Bartlett's An Intervention will feature rotating pairs of world-class actors, performing the two-hander that puts personal and political intervention under a magnifying glass. Lila Neugebauer will direct both productions.

For tickets and more information, click below:

Off the Main Road

Paradise Blue

A Moon for the Misbegotten

Legacy

Kinship

Unknown Soldier

Chewing Gum Dreams

An Intervention