Transport Group, the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and a 2007 Obie Award, has announced that its acclaimed production of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead, directed by Joe Calarco, will be taped for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Theatre on Film and Tape Archive on Friday, November 21.
This first major New York revival of the 1936 play stars OBIE Award winner Donna Lynne Champlin and plays at 220 East 4 Street, between Avenues A and B (6 to Astor Place, W/N to 8th Street or F/V to Second Avenue).
Irwin Shaw's harrowing 1936 classic Bury the Dead takes place during "the second year of the war that is to begin tomorrow night." While a military burial detail goes about its sad duties, the dead soldiers shockingly begin to rise up, pleading not to be buried. Word of their insurrection spreads rapidly: the dead will not yield so easily. In a series of touching scenes the dead men talk with their loved ones of the days of living, now lost forever. Lucille Lortel Award-Winner Joe Calarco (Shakespeare's R & J) directs Shaw's legendary anti-war play.
In addition to Ms. Champlin, the cast of Bury the Dead is Jeremy Beck, Fred Berman, Mandell Butler, Jake Hart, Jeff Pucillo, and Matt Sincell.
The original Broadway production of Bury the Dead included a cast of 32 actors; this production uses seven.
Founded in 2001, Transport Group, under the leadership of Jack Cummings III, artistic director, and Lori Fineman, executive director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that develops and produces work by American playwrights and composers with the aim of exploring the American consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries. Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002: Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk Award nominations including outstanding revival of a musical. Recent productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including outstanding musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee John Cariani; the first New York revival of Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, Obie-winning production of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn and Marcy in the Galaxy. Transport Group is the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions."
Bury the Dead plays Thursday through Saturday and Monday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm through Sunday, November 23, at 220 East 4 Street, between Avenues A & B (6 to Astor Place, W/N to 8th Street or F/V to Second Avenue). Tickets are $38 and are available at www.transportgroup.org or by phoning TheaterMania at (212) 352-3101; $10 rush tickets are available to students one hour prior to curtain.
For more information about Transport Group and Bury the Dead, visit www.transportgroup.org.
Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi
