Dates Set for Jack Goes Boating With Hoffman, Ortiz, and Rubin-Vega

Dates are now set for the LAByrinth Theater Company’s world premiere production of Bob Glaudini’s Jack Goes Boating. The show will star LAByrinth’s co-artistic directors, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz, alongside Daphne Rubin-Vega and Beth Cole; it is scheduled to begin previews on February 27 at The Public Theater’s Martinson Hall and to open officially on March 18.

Jack Goes Boating is described as a story of date panic, marital meltdown, betrayal, and the prevailing grace of the human spirit, laced with cooking classes, swimming lessons and a smorgasbord of illegal drugs. Recent Callaway Award winner Peter DuBois will direct the production.

Glaudini is the author of Dutch Heart of Man, which was produced by LAByrinth. Hoffman received Tony nominations for True West and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and a Drama Desk nomination for his direction of LAByrinth’s Our Lady of 121st Street; last year, he won an Academy Award for his performance in the title role of Capote. Ortiz has appeared in such LAByrinth shows as Jesus Hopped the “A” Train (for which he received a Drama Desk nomination), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, and Guinea Pig Solo. He was seen on Broadway in Anna in the Tropics.

Rubin-Vega is currently playing Fantine in the Broadway revival of Les Misérables. Best known as the original Mimi in Rent, for which performance she won a Theater World Award and was nominated for Tony and Drama Desk awards, she was also Tony-nominated for her work in Anna in the Tropics and was featured in the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show. Cole has been a LAByrinth member since 2003.

In related news, LAByrinth will offer two free readings of Glaudini’s A View from 151st Street, also directed by DuBois, as part of the Seventh Annual Barn Series Festival. The readings will take place on December 17 and 20 at 8pm at The Public Theater; they will feature Gbenga Akkinagbe, Liza Colon-Zayas, Russell G. Jones, Marisa Malone, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Felix Solis, muMs, and David Zayas.

For more information, visit www.labtheater.org.