39 Previews

I'm going to apologize right now for the lack of content over the last few weeks. I'm sorry - I do miss posting, but there have been more pressing priorities lately. I must also now tell you to expect exactly the same for the next few weeks.

I'm on vacation for the next ten days or so - and then it's going to take a week or so to catch up from relaxing. Unless I run into some Huntington glitterati on Provincetown's famous Commercial Street (entirely possible), or see something that I can't help but share, you won't be hearing from me for at least 15 days.

Meanwhile my staff, who have also been getting some much deserved R&R, will be working away on The 39 Steps. By the time I'm able to post again we should have some construction photos to show you. I can't believe rehearsals start in about FIVE WEEKS!

We've got prelim drawings for Brendan due any day now, as well as a design visit from Streamers director Scott Ellis and scenic designer Neil Patel with the set model.

Somewhere in there I'll chat with scenic designer Ralph Funicello (The Cherry Orchard) who will be designing our sets for Third. I'll be wrapping up details for Shining City which is coming to us from our friends at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, directed by Robert Falls, with the New York physical production designed by Santo Loquasto, Kaye Voyce, Chris Akerlind and Obediah Eaves.

The Cry of the Reed and She Loves Me will have to wait for some of my time in August. Nicky is off to Williamstown very soon to direct The Corn is Green with Kate Burton so there is time yet.

Huntington Presents projects for next season, such The Atheist (with Campbell Scott) and a couple of others which I'm not quite sure I'm supposed to mention yet (ok, here goes - Judy Gold in her 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother - and the living cartoon lip syncing origami-ist Ennio Marchetto), will be the subject of a 10AM meeting on my first day back. "Huntington Presents" is our little nick name for the non subscriptions shows we put on in the Wimberly (such as Trumbo, Laughing Wild, Forbidden Broadway, and Kiki & Herb).

Oh - and we're doing some renovations in the BU Theatre Lobby, some HVAC work at the Pavilion, and I have a bunch of job searches open at the moment. I may shoot the next person who says "it must be nice and slow in the summer"!

That was FUN - as if I didn't know exactly what it is I'm running away from!

I do however, want to leave you with something a little more interesting than the scribbles in my daily planner. Here are some (very nice) design renderings of (just a few of) the costumes, designed and drawn by Peter McIntosh, for our upcoming production of The 39 Steps. Enjoy - and I'll be back soon!

In the shadows

The Present Laughter company has gone home, the set has been struck, Kiki & Herb have been packed into their coffins and shipped to San Francisco, the celebrities are heading to Williamstown and Fenway Park, and the BU Theatre is dark now until September.

Today the stage was bare - nice and clean, with a newly painted floor - yet dark and very lonely on a steamy July afternoon.

I have to admit that I find that empty stage incredibly exciting - brimming with the potential of something that only imagination can create. As we've spent the last weeks cleaning up and plotting out plans for our 2007-2008 season that potential has come more clearly into focus.

We're going to take you to Scotland on a wild ride across the country in The 39 Steps - a comedy thriller based on Hitchcock's movie version of the famous story of the same name. Then we'll bring you inside the US Army - to a stateside Vietnam era barracks for the explosive Streamers. Next - we'll bring you to a New England college campus for Third. We'll then explore the world of Conor McPherson's Dublin, Ireland in Shining City. And in May we'll visit a perfume shop in Budapest for She Loves Me.

From the South End we'll journey a few blocks to South Boston for world premiere of Ronan Noone's Brendan at the Calderwood Pavilion. In the spring the doors of the Wimberly Theatre will open to Turkey and the war torn oppression of Afghanistan for Sinan Unel's The Cry of the Reed.

Travel from places right next door to across the world in the comfort of our beautiful facilities, experience live theatre, and share in these unique experiences in the ways that you've come to expect only the Huntington to deliver.

That's only some of the exciting potential I see lurking in the shadows of our empty theatre. What are you looking forward to?

That empty theater does not, however, make for very interesting photos. I'll leave you instead with some scenes from the past few weeks. First the final curtain call from Present Laughter. Then a look at the "strike". Finally - Dead Gus makes another appearance. It seems that all that British banter wasn't good for his health. Poor fellah.

BU Today

BU Today is running a five part series called "Backstage at BU" starting off today with a feature on BU Alumni and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Ronan Noone and his play Brendan, which was performed as a workshop by the University last fall and we'll produce in October.

Click here for Part 1. (Brendan)
Click here for Part 2. (La Boheme)
Click here for Part 3. (The Cherry Orchard)
Click here for Part 4. (Tonight, Tonight)
Click here for Part 5. (Mauritius)

I'll quote a couple of paragraphs of the article:

"Boston University loves drama, from the moodiness of Anton Chekhov to the humor of George Bernard Shaw. The GRS Creative Writing Program’s elite playwriting program has produced some of today’s most successful young playwrights, such as Ronan Noone (GRS’01) and Melinda Lopez (GRS’00), and benefited from decades of partnership with BU’s Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, founded by Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize winning poet and a BU professor, and the Huntington Theatre Company, in residence at Boston University. The 25-year relationship between BU and the Huntington has given one of the country’s best professional companies a performance space and offered BU students an opportunity for hands-on experience.

This week BU Today looks at five shows produced at Boston University in 2006 and 2007, ranging from workshops at the College of Fine Arts to full-scale productions by the Huntington.

Subscriber Bonus - Campbell Scott

There are many benefits to being a subscriber such as saving up to 25% on single ticket prices and getting first go at tickets to special Huntington Events. Today's news is of one of those special events; Campbell Scott will star in a limited run of Ronan Noone's The Atheist

I quote from our latest issue of Spotlight;

The Atheist
by Ronan Noone
Directed by Justin Waldman
Starring Campbell Scott

14 Performances Only
September 12-30, 2007
at the Virginia Wimberly Theatre
in the Standford Calderwood Pavilion
at the Boston Center for the Arts.


EVERY GOOD NEWS STORY NEEDS A GOOD STORYTELLER. Augustine Early, a crooked journalist, has made an art of clawing his way up the professional ladder. When he turns the Mayor’s tawdry predilections into front page news, the scandal threatens to undo the one person he thought was immune – Augustine himself. A searing and hilarious new play about catching the perfect frontpage headline, whatever the cost.

Actor and director Campbell Scott (whose numerous film credits include The Secret Lives of Dentists and Roger Dodger, as well as the title role in Hamlet for the Huntington) performed a reading of this one-man show during the Huntington’s 2006 Breaking Ground Festival of New Plays, before The Atheist premiered in both New York and London earlier this year. The Atheist is written by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Ronan Noone, whose play Brendan is also part of the Huntington’s 2007-2008 Season, and will be directed by Huntington Artistic Associate Justin Waldman.

I was lucky to be at the 2006 reading and I am really looking forward to seeing Campbell in this play again. It is a great night of theatre.

Back Stage at the Criterion

I've completed my duties in London - having seen The 39 Steps a couple of times, taken a backstage tour and met some great people here at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. I may tell you a bit more about that later, but for now you'll have to settle for a backstage tour of your own. Click here.

You can get to know Richard Hannay here.

You can rent the Hitchcock movie (I got it from Netflix). If you're short for time, you can view this 3 minute version below.

PS> The 39 Steps will be the first production of our 2007-2008 season, beginning performances on September 14, 2007 at the BU Theatre.

And here's a fun advertisement for the London Production.



I'm now officially a full time tourist for the next 24 hours. Cheerio!

Huntington's 2007-2008 Season Announced

The press releases are flying out the door this week. Here's a quick heads upon next year's season.

You can read more about the plays and learn about subscribing online here. We have great subscription values next year starting at $25 per play.

"The Huntington Theatre Company announced today its 2007-2008 Season, which includes two world premieres by local playwrights, the final work by award-winning writer Wendy Wasserstein, a play that landed on all the major top ten lists of 2006, and American premiere of a West End London smash on it's way to Broadway, and a beloved classical musical.

This is the final season to be programmed by Huntington Artistic Director Nicholas Martin, who in June 2008 becomes Artist Emeritus for two years. Martin will also direct the season-closing musical, "She Loves Me."

Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps”
Adapted by Patrick Barlow
Based on an Original Concept by
Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon
Based on the book by John Buchan
Sept. 14 - Oct. 14, 2007
Boston University Theatre, the Huntington’s main stage

"Brendan"
by Ronan Noone
Directed by Justin Waldman
Oct. 12 - Nov. 11, 2007
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts

"Streamers"
by David Rabe
Directed by Scott Ellis
Nov. 9 - Dec. 9, 2007
B.U. Theatre

"Third"
by Wendy Wasserstein
Director to be announced
Jan 4 - Feb 3, 2008
B.U. Theatre

"Shining City"
by Conor McPherson
Director to be announced
March 7 - April 6, 2008
B.U. Theatre

"The Cry of the Reed"
by Sinan Unel
Director to be announced
March 28 - May 4, 2008
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA

"She Loves Me"
Book by Joe Masteroff
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Music by Jerry Bock
Based on a play by Mikos Laszlo
Directed by Nicholas Martin
May 16 - June 15, 2008
B.U. Theatre


Click here to see all of our 2007-2008 plays