New York Spotlight: July 2005

July marks America’s 229th birthday, so perhaps it’s only appropriate that an all-American girl finally makes it to the Great White Way this month.

In her autobiographical solo show, The Blonde in the Thunderbird (starting July 8), Suzanne Somers — yep, we mean the former Three’s Company star and ThighMaster pitchwoman — will discuss her 37-year acting career, while also performing some special musical material by veteran Tinseltown team Ken and Mitzi Welch.

The Main Stem’s other new theatrical offerings have a decidedly international flair. Lennon (previews begin July 7) takes a look at the life of late Beatle John Lennon, using over two dozen of his songs and a cast of nine sterling performers including Tony Award winners Chuck Cooper and Terrence Mann. Primo (opening July 11), based on the memoir by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, brings the great South African-born actor Sir Antony Sher to these shores for a rare visit.

For an even greater world view, head over to this year’s Lincoln Center Festival (July 12-31). Among its many high points are legendary French director Ariane Mnouchkine’s two-part drama about refugees, Le Dernier Caravanserail, to be staged in Damrosch Park; My Life as a Fairy Tale, a new music-theater piece by Stephin Merritt and Erik Ehn about the life of Hans Christian Andersen, starring Fiona Shaw and Blair Brown; Carlo Goldoni’s classic farce, Arlecchino: The Servant of Two Masters, starring the legendary Italian actor Ferruccio Soleri; and Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa’s presentation of Yukio Mishima’s Modern Noh Plays.

There’s an equally intriguing if less star-studded lineup at the East to Edinburgh festival (July 12-31). In addition to encore engagements of two previous hits, A Clockwork Orange and The Booth Variations, the festival’s offerings include Christine Jorgensen Reveals, in which Bradford Louryk lipsynchs an interview with the famed transexual; Edward Allen Baker’s one-act comedy Lila on the Wall, and Stirring, the tale of seven Williamsburg hipsters based on real-life online personal ads.

Elsewhere around town, The Public Theater kicks off its two-show Shakespeare in the Park season at the Delacorte with Mark Lamos’ production of As You Like It, starring Brian Bedford, Lynn Collins, Richard Thomas, and James Waterston (opening July 12); while the annual Summer Play Festival (July 5-31) offers shows by 16 emerging playwrights, including J.T. Rogers, Gordon Dahlquist, and Michelle Carter.

Finally, 1980s film star Corey Feldman takes on a spoof of one of that decade’s seminal films in Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy (opens July 10); Second Stage Theatre presents the first of its two “Uptown” plays at the McGinn Cazale, Adam Bock’s quirky comedy Swimming in the Shallows, starring two extraordinary young actors, Michael Arden and Logan Marshall-Green (thru July 17); and the ever-valuable Mint Theater opens its 14th season on July 10 with a revival of John Galsworthy’s drama The Skin Game, with John C. Venemma and James Gale as the brawling neighbors.