Issue #89: June 1, 2002

• The Tony people have returned the hosting duties to two vets of the stage. Gregory Hines and Bernadette Peters will share the podium when this annual event takes place on June 2.

• Anne Heche joins a list of notables when she makes her Broadway debut in the award-winning play Proof on July 2, 2002 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Heche follows stints by Mary-Louise Parker and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I doubt if Ellen DeGeneres will be taking in the show.

• The Public Theatre will be presenting just one show this summer at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. On tap is an eight-week run of Twelfth Night and all indications are that it will be a star-studded company as in years past. So far Julia Stiles is signed to play Viola. Stay tuned for more celebrity casting news.

• The Dodgers, producers of 42nd Street, have signed a special agreement with Actors Equity for their upcoming national tour. This contract will allow the full production with 55 company members to embark on a 65-city tour beginning in August. The two entities reached this agreement to avoid a situation created last year when The Dodgers licensed their Broadway production of The Music Man to Big League Theatricals, which presented a non-Equity tour. That tour was picketed by union members in several cities causing havoc for the local presenters.

• The Hartford Stage in Southbury Conn. will mount a 50th anniversary revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful as part of its 2002-03 season. Bountiful will star Hallie Foote and Jean Stapleton who, coincidentally are both currently starring together at Lincoln Center in another Horton Foote play The Carpetbagger’s Children. And, yes, Hallie and Horton are related; they are father and daughter. Other offerings at the Hartford Stage will be a new play based on the life of Rita Hayworth, Diosa; a staging of Much Ado About Nothing; Electra, and Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana. The six-play season wraps up with either the one-man R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe or the new play Edgardo Mine.

• Adrian Nobel will leave his post as artistic director at the Royal Shakespeare Company next spring after twelve years on the job. Nobel is currently the toast of London with the huge hit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang marking his foray into the world of musical theatre. Look for him to take on Broadway with the staging of Ibsen’s verse play Brand starring Ralph Fiennes. No date or theatre mentioned just yet.

• A very special celebration is taking place this season in Stratford, Ontario. It’s the 50th anniversary of the prestigious Stratford Festival. If you have never been to this part of southern Ontario it’s worth making a point to visit. Although works by Shakespeare are the main fare, there are other shows you can catch including My Fair Lady, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Threepenny Opera.