Theater News

Who’s Coming to Dinner? For Now, We’ll Have to Guess

Marie Dressler and Jean Harlow in the film version of Dinner at Eight
Marie Dressler and Jean Harlow in the film version of Dinner at Eight

A publicist for Lincoln Center Theater has confirmed reports that the company will offer a new production of the 1932 George S. Kaufman-Edna Ferber comedy Dinner at Eight this fall at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, to be directed by Gerald Gutierrez, whose credits range from his Tony Award-winning work on The Heiress and A Delicate Balance for LCT to his flop Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress. Gutierrez recently directed Boys and Girls for Playwrights Horizons.

Though the original Broadway production of Dinner at Eight played for 232 performances at the Music Box, the property is best known in the guise of its 1933 Hollywood film adaptation, directed by George Cukor and with an all-star cast including Billie Burke, John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Marie Dressler. The play had a short-lived Broadway revival in 1966 at the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon) starring June Havoc, Darren McGavin, Walter Pidgeon, and Arlene Francis under the direction of the famed Tyrone Guthrie. The Lincoln Center production, which will begin previews in November and open on December 19, has not yet been cast.

LCT’s season will also include “A Bad Friend,” a new play by Jules Feiffer, to be presented at the Mitzi Newhouse theater in the spring. The new Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical A Man of No Importance, based on a film of the same title that starred Albert Finney, will open at the Newhouse on October 10. The long-running LCT production of Contact will close at the Vivian Beaumont on September 1.