Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director), in association with Damian Arnold, has just announced the Broadway premiere of Marc Camoletti's classic farce Don't Dress For Dinner, adapted by Robin Hawdon, directed by John Tillinger. The cast will be announced soon.
Don't Dress For Dinner will begin previews on March 30 and open officially on April 26, 2012 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street). This will be a limited engagement through June 17, 2012.
The design team includes John Lee Beatty (Sets), Jess Goldstein (Costumes)& Ken Billington (Lights).
Marc Camoletti's Don't Dress for Dinner is the wildly funny sequel to the Broadway hit Boeing-Boeing. Bernard's plans for a romantic rendezvous with his mistress are complete with a gourmet caterer and an alibi courtesy of his friend, Robert. But when Bernard's wife learns that Robert will be visiting for the weekend, she decides to stay in town for a surprise tryst of her own... setting the stage for a collision course of hidden identities and outrageous infidelities. The cook is Suzette, the lover is Suzanne, the friend is bewildered, the wife is suspicious, the husband is losing his mind and everyone is guaranteed a good time at this hilarious romp through the French countryside.
Don't Dress For Dinner opened in Paris in 1987, under the original title Pajamas Pour Six, and ran for over two years. Robert Hawdon's adaptation of the original French play premiered in London at the Apollo Theatre in 1991 and ran for six years.
Only Roundabout subscribers have first access to tickets. To become a Roundabout Subscriber, visit www.roundabouttheatre.org or call Roundabout Ticket Services (212) 719-1300 today. Single Tickets will be available to the general public in the winter of 2012.
Don't Dress for Dinner will play Tuesday through Saturday evening at 8:00PM with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00PM.
MARC CAMOLETTI (Writer) was a French citizen born in Geneva in 1923 and initially trained as an architect. Playwriting took over when in 1958 his theatre career got off to a flying start with three plays being presented simultaneously in Paris, the first La Bonne Anna running for 1300 performances and going on to play throughout the world. Already an established success in Paris as Pyjama pour Six, the initial London production of the English language version Don't Dress for Dinner (translated by Robin Hawdon), ran for seven years in the West End, opening at the Apollo Theatre and transferring to the Duchess Theatre. The play has also been performed in several US venues, as well as in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and in different languages throughout the world, always to great acclaim. Marc Camoletti's first great British success was Boeing-Boeing, currently enjoying a smash hit revival on Broadway following its recent West End triumph. The original London production ran for seven years at the Apollo and Duchess Theatres, notching up over 2000 performances. In a long theatrical career, Marc Camoletti gained worldwide acclaim through the multitude of productions of his plays in numerous languages in 55 countries. In Paris alone 18 of his plays have enjoyed around 20,000 performances in all. Ten of Marc Camoletti's plays have also been shown on television, the latest being Sexe et Jalousie (Ding Dong). An Associate of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts, Marc Camoletti became a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honeur - one of France's highest honours. He died in 2003.
ROBIN HAWDON (Adaptor) has had an extremely varied career. From novelist and West End playwright to TV soap actor, B-movie film star and Hamlet, to director of one of England's foremost theatres, his activities have spanned numerous aspects of the arts. In his early twenties his face became well known to British television viewers through regular appearances in several series. He later co-starred with Michael Crawford in the ITV sit-com "Chalk and Cheese." He made a number of films, going on to star in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and Zeta One. On stage Hawdon was seen in several leading roles in London's West End, and also played a number of classical leads around the country, such as Hamlet, Henry V and Henry Higgins in Pygmalion. At the same time, his career as a writer flourished. His first major commercial success, The Mating Game, achieved a long run at London's Apollo Theatre and has subsequently played in over thirty countries around the world. This was followed by other much performed and published plays such as Birthday Suite, Revenge, Don't Rock the Boat, The Perfect Wedding, God and Stephen Hawking and the hugely successful Don't Dress for Dinner (his adaptation of the French play by Marc Camoletti). Robin has also directed a number of stage productions, and in the 1980s founded the Bath Fringe Festival and then became Director of the Theatre Royal Bath, England's premier touring theatre.
JOHN TILLINGER (Director). Broadway: Absurd Person Singular with Paxton Whitehead and Deborah Rush; Say Goodnight, Gracie with Frank Gorshin; Judgment at Nuremburg with Maximilian Schell, Martha Keller and George Grizzard; Night Must Fall with Matthew Broderick; The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall; Inherit the Wind with Charles Durning and George C. Scott (Tony Award nomination, OCC Award); Arthur Miller's Broken Glass; The Price with Eli Wallach (Tony Award nomination); Sweet Sue with Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave; Loot! with Joseph Maher (Tony Award nomination, OCC Award); Corpse! with Milo O'Shea; The Golden Age with Stockard Channing, Irene Worth and Jeff Daniels; Solomon's Child. Off-Broadway: Tea at Five with Kate Mulgrew; A Picasso; House and Garden; Comic Potential with Janie Dee; The Exact Center; Dealer's Choice; Sylvia with Sarah Jessica Parker; A Perfect Ganesh with Zoe Caldwell and Francis Sternhagen; The Last Yankee; Lips Together Teeth Apart with Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski and Swoosie Kurtz ; Prin with Dame Eileen Atkins; What the Butler Saw; Urban Blight; It's Only a Play with Christine Baranski, James Coco and Joanna Gleason; (all at Manhattan Theatre Club); After the Fall with Frank Langella and Dianne Wiest; Breaking Legs with Vincent Gardenia and Philip Bosco; The Lisbon Traviata with Nathan Lane (Lortel Award); Love Letters with many stars including Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst (Lortel Award); The Film Society; Little Murders with Christine Lahti; The Perfect Party (OCC Award); Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Drama Desk Award). Regional: Don't Dress for Dinner at the Royal George (Chicago); Eleanor with Jean Stapleton (Arena Stage); and many seasons at Long Wharf Theatre: Arsenic and Old Lace with Joanne Woodward; As You Like It; The Road to Mecca with Julie Harris; Betrayal; The Lover; The Ruffian on the Stair; A Flea in Her Ear; Another Country with Peter Gallagher and Peter McNichol; This Story of Yours; A Christmas Garland. Westport Country Playhouse: Children, How the Other Half Loves, The Drawer Boy, Relatively Speaking, Time of My Life.
DAMIAN ARNOLD (Producer, The British Stage Company) trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) for three years. He has performed on stage in the U.K. and the U.S., and has worked for the BBC as an actor and also as a writer. He is the founding member of The British Stage Company (BSC). The BSC was established to present works of a chiefly comic nature, and Don't Dress for Dinner is its inaugural production.
Roundabout Theatre Company is a not-for-profit theatre dedicated to providing a nurturing artistic home for theatre artists at all stages of their careers where the widest possible audience can experience their work at affordable prices. Roundabout fulfills its mission each season through the revival of classic plays and musicals; development and production of new works by established playwrights and emerging writers; educational initiatives that enrich the lives of children and adults; and a subscription model and audience outreach programs that cultivate loyal audiences.
Roundabout Theatre Company currently produces at four theatres each of which is designed specifically to enhance the needs of the Roundabout's mission. Off-Broadway, the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, with its simple sophisticated design is perfectly suited to showcasing new plays. The grandeur of its Broadway home on 42nd Street, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics. Roundabout's Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. The Stephen Sondheim Theatre offers a state of the art LEED certified Broadway theatre in which to stage major large scale musical revivals. Together these distinctive homes serve to enhance the work on each of its stages.
American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Roundabout Theatre Company's 2011-2012 season features Terence Rattigan's Man & Boy, starring Frank Langella, directed by Maria Aitken; Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet, directed by Peter DuBois; Andrew Hinderaker's Suicide, Incorporated, directed by Jonathan Berry; Athol Fugard's The Road To Mecca starring Rosemary Harris, Carla Gugino & Jim Dale, directed by Gordon Edelstein and John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, directed by Sam Gold. Roundabout's Tony Award winning production of Anything Goes starring Sutton Foster & Joel Grey, directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, is currently playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theater.
