Roger Rees (Nicholas Nickleby, A Man of No Importance), the artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, has arranged both a charter bus trip from New York to Williamstown, Massachusetts, and a package deal for bus riders that includes tickets to Top Girls and The Sugar Syndrome, and dinner at the Williams Inn.
The bus, on which there are only 47 available seats as of now, will depart 42nd Street, (between 5th and 6th Avenues, at Bryant Park) on July 30, at 9:30 a.m., with Rees himself on hand to meet and see off passengers. Upon arriving, travelers will have two hours to explore downtown, before seeing Caryl Churchill's Top Girls at 4 p.m. on the Main Stage. After the show, the Williams Inn will provide a light dinner and access to their facilities, before Lucy Prebble's The Sugar Syndrome plays at the newly renovated Nikos Stage at 8:30 PM. Directly following the evening production, the bus will load up and head back to the city.Directed by Jo Bonney and featuring Reiko Aylesworth, Becky Ann Baker, Brienin Bryant, Jessica Hecht, Ellen McLaughlin, and Elizabeth Reaser, Top Girls was the play that catapulted Churchill's career as an important playwright of social and feminist insight. "What kind of a victory is women's progress in the workplace? Or is it a victory at all? At a dinner party celebrating Marlene's promotion, five women, superstars of the golden ages of history, literature and art, weigh in on the personal sacrifices a woman makes to achieve success," as the show is described in production notes.
Prebble's The Sugar Syndrome features Gaby Hoffmann, Patch Darragh, Tim Hopper, and Betsy Aidem, and is directed by Maria Mileaf. In the play, "Seventeen-year-old Dani surfs internet chat rooms searching for someone who is honest and direct. What she finds is a man twice her age who thinks she is an eleven year-old boy. With richly textured writing and humor, it's Lucy Prebble's play that's honest and direct. Fierce and devastatingly, disarmingly, disturbingly funny, The Sugar Syndrome contains adult subject matter and is intended for mature audiences."Tickets for the charter bus, shows and dinner (which includes options of chicken caesar salad, vegetable quiche, French dip and fries, or beverage and dessert) are $130 per person. Interested theatregoers should act fast to secure tickets, which can be obtained by calling the WTF box office at 413-597-3400. For more information on the Williamstown Theatre Festival, visit www.wtfestival.org.
