New York Spotlight: August 2010
and Preston Sadleir star in Me, Myself, and I
(© Tristan Fuge)
Elizabeth Ashley and Brian Murray head the Off-Broadway cast of Edward Albee’s Me, Myself, and I, at Playwrights Horizons, August 24-October 31. Emily Mann will direct the play, which focuses on a mother who can’t tell her identical twins apart and how the men, both named Otto, takes sibling rivalry to existential heights. The cast will also include Zachary Booth, Natalia Payne, Stephen Payne, and Preston Sadleir.
Three-time Emmy Award nominee Peter Scolari will star in Kenny Solms’ new comedy, It Must Be Him (Peter J. Sharp Theatre, August 24-September 26), playing a whiz kid comedy writer from the heyday of variety television, who is now down on his luck and looking to make a comeback. The cast will also include Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominee Liz Torres, Patrick Cummings, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Harris Doran, Ryan Duncan, John Treacy Egan, Jonathan C. Kaplan, David Margulies, Alice Playten, Edward Staudenmayer, and Jessica Tyler Wright.
Rosie Benton, Janie Brookshire, Shawn Fagan, Jon Fletcher, Jeremy S. Holm, Thomas Matthew Kelley, Aidan Redmond, and Liv Rooth will star in Mint Theater Company’s production of Teresa Deevy’s Wife To James Whelan (through September 26), which focuses on an ambitious young man determined to make his mark, but who may not be able to find anyone or anything that will bring him happiness.
Are you ready to rock? If so, head on over to the Midtown Theatre beginning August 5 for Power Balladz, an interactive piece that features rock anthems of the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, including songs by Guns ‘N’ Roses, Journey, Heart, Queens, Bon Jovi, and Styx.
If it’s August, then it’s time for the New York International Fringe Festival, which takes over various venues in downtown Manhattan. Notable casting of Fringe productions include 24 star Reiko Aylesworth in John Pollono’s Lost and Found; Broadway veteran Sarah Litzsinger in a revamped version of the musical Platinum; Broadway and Off-Broadway veterans Justin Blanchard, Morgan Karr, Doug Kreeger, and Sam Underwood in Stan Richardson’s Veritas; and two-time Emmy nominee Janice Lynde in Meghan Gambling’s Happy Birthday, Mom.
Choice Fringe titles include: 12 Incompetent Men (And Women!), Amsterdam Abortion Survivor, The Battle of Spanktown, The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival, Love in the Time of Swine Flu, and MacChin: The Lamentable Tragedie of Jay Leno.
Noteworthy non-Fringe productions include: Delaney Britt Brewer’s Wolves (59E59 Theaters, August 4-21), which starts with a wolf colliding with a young couple’s automobile on a snowy New Year’s Eve; Luigi Creatore’s new play, An Error of the Moon (Beckett Theatre, August 13-October 10), a fictional portrait of the brothers Edwin and John Wilkes Booth; Randy Cohen’s The Punishing Blow: An Illustrated Lecture Delivered by Order of the Orange County Criminal Court (Kirk Theatre, August 13-28), about an anti-Semitic college professor; and Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Den Of Thieves (Chernuchin Theater, August 19-29), a black comedy about a shoplifter looking to change her life.
