The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company (Carl Forsman, Artistic Director/Wayne Kelton, Executive Director) today announced their 10th anniversary season celebrating the work of Michael Frayn, author of such acclaimed hits as Noises Off and Copenhagen. First will be the US premiere of Alphabetical Order, based on the revised version performed at the Hampstead Theater for their 2009 revival. Mr. Forsman will direct. This will be followed by the 25th Anniversary production of Benefactors this spring.
Performances for this limited Off-Broadway engagement of Alphabetical Order at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street), will begin September 14th and continue through October 26th only, with opening night set for September 26th. Featured in the cast are Brad Bellamy, William Connell, John Windsor Cunningham, Margaret Daly, Paul Molnar, Angela Reed, and Audrey Lynn Weston. Design team includes Josh Bradford, Jill Du Boff, Nathan Heverin, and Jennifer Paar.
Alphabetical Order was first produced at Hampstead in 1975. It subsequently transferred to the West End and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy. This early version was seen in the US at the Long Wharf Theater in 1976. Set in a provincial newspaper office in the 1970s, where it's just another day of chaos in the cuttings library: files all over the floor, phones ringing, but where is Lucy the librarian? Her life (when she finally arrives), and the lives of the journalists who take refuge in her muddled retreat, turn out to be as confused as the library itself. Into this comfortable little world steps Lesley, Lucy's new assistant. She's young, bright, and she wants system and order. Things are about to change.
"Keen Company has a long tradition of finding plays the theater has forgotten and giving them new life, like The Breadwinner by Somerset Maugham or I Never Sang For My Father by Robert Anderson. This year we are thrilled to present these two plays which both speak powerfully to the challenges of living a life of generosity and compassion. These works display Mr. Frayn's enormous range as a dramatist - both the brilliant comic writer known for the greatest farce of the 20th Century, and the master observer of the human condition in the tradition of Chekhov," said Forsman.
Keen Company produces sincere plays. We believe that theater is at its most powerful when texts and productions are generous in spirit and provoke identification. Inspired by the works of early 20th Century American Playwrights, Keen Company demonstrates that an earnest intent can still be sophisticated. We are unafraid of emotional candor, vulnerability, and optimism. Keen Company seeks to create a culture of artists, technicians, administrators and audiences who share a desire to invigorate the theater with productions that connect us through humor, heart and hope.
Michael Frayn began his career as a reporter on The Guardian, then became a columnist on that paper from 1959 to 1962, and for The Observer from 1962 to 1968. He has published ten novels - Spies, Headlong, Tin Men, The Russian Interpreter, Towards The End Of Morning, A Very Private Life, Sweet Dreams, The Trick Of It, A Landing On The Sun, and Now You Know, together with two philosophical works, Constructions and The Human Touch. He has written a number of plays for television and for the stage including The Two Of Us, Alphabetical Order, Donkeys' Years, Clouds, Balmoral (Liberty Hall), Make and Break, Noises Off, Benefactors, Look Look and Here. Alphabetical Order, Make and Break and Noises Off all received Best Comedy of the Year Awards, while Benefactors was named Best Play of the Year. He has translated four of Chekhov's full-length plays - The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya and adapted Chekhov's first, untitled play as Wild Honey. He has also translated four of his one-act plays - The Evils Of Tobacco, Swan Song, The Bear and The Proposal and adapted five short stories Drama, The Alien Corn, The Sneeze, The Inspector General, Swan Song and Plots for the stage. These, with the exception of Plots, were staged collectively as The Sneeze. He has also translated Tolstoy's Fruits Of Enlightenment, Yuri Trifonov's Exchange and Anouilh's Number One. Clockwise, his first film, was released in 1986 starring John Cleese. His second film, First and Last, won an International Emmy Award in 1990. Disney produced the film of Noises Off. Alphabetical Order, Donkeys' Years, Make And Break and Benefactors have all been filmed for U.K. television and A Landing On The Sun was filmed and broadcast (on BBC) in 1994. Michael adapted his novel, Now You Know, which opened at The Hampstead Theatre in 1995 and subsequently toured the country. New plays followed: Copenhagen opened at the National Theatre in 1998 and transferred to the Duchess Theatre. It won Best Play at both the Evening Standard Awards and the London Critics' Circle Awards and has been presented around the world in many languages. Democracy had its world premiere at the National Theatre in 2003 and transferred to Broadway in 2004. His most recent play, Afterlife, about impresario Max Reinhardt premiered at the National Theatre.
Carl Forsman (Director) is the founder and Artistic Director of Keen Company. Recent work includes Love Child at New World Stages and Primary Stages, A Few Good Men at the Asolo, Tina Howe's new translations of Ionesco's The Bald Soprano & The Lesson for the Atlantic Theater, and Sin by Michael Murphy for The New Group. He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Director for his work on Keen Company's revival of The Voice Of The Turtle, which transferred to an extended run off-Broadway. His direction of the American premiere of Conor McPherson's The Good Thief earned an OBIE Award for Brian d'Arcy James and Drama Desk & Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Solo Performance. Other directions for Keen Company include Gerald Sibleyras' Heroes, John Belluso's Pyretown, Thornton Wilder's The Happy Journey, David Hay's The Maddening Truth, Michael Murphy's The Conscientious Objector, Beasley's Christmas Party, David Auburn's adaptation of The Journals Of Mihail Sebastian, P.G. Wodehouse's Good Morning, Bill, Keith Reddin's Can't Let Go, Tina Howe's Museum, Gertrude Tonkonogy's Three-Cornered Moon, and S.N. Behrman's The Second Man. Other work in New York includes Courtney Baron's In The Widows' Garden and Eric Winick's Rearviewmirror (Reverie Productions), Keith Reddin's David and Bathseba (Chekhov Now Festival) and Julia Jordan's Paul Westerberg (Soho Rep Summercamp). He has taught at NYU/Atlantic, FSU/Asolo, and SMU and is a graduate of Middlebury College.
Performances for both productions will be at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) and will play Tuesdays at 7pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; and Sunday matinees at 3pm.
Tickets will be $57.50 for each show, but a subscription package for both shows is only $68. For subscriptions, call the Subscriber Toll-Free Hotline at 800/664-8857. To purchase individual tickets, or for more information, call Telecharge.com at 212/239-6200 or visit www.keencompany.org.
