Bartlett Sher, Julie Taymor and More to Attend TFANA Celebration of Andrew Weems

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) will host a celebration of Andrew Weems (1961-2019). The celebration will take place at Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn), TFANA's home, on Monday, February 17 at 7pm.

Family, friends, and colleagues will gather to remember Andy in an evening of tributes, readings, and music. Speakers include Bartlett Sher and Julie Taymor, both of whom directed Andy. A reception will follow in the lobby.

This celebration is open to the public, but RSVP is required. For more information, please email Emma Went at ewent@tfana.org by Friday, February 14th.

If you are unable to attend, in lieu of flowers Weems requested that contributions be made to one of the following organizations:

Nepal Youth Foundation (nepalyouthfoundation.org)

Kattaikkuttu Sangam (kattaikkuttu.org)

Drama Club (dramaclubnyc.org)

Andrew Franklin Weems (1961-2019)

Andrew Weems was born in Seoul, Korea. His father was an aeronautical engineer turned foreign aid administrator. His mother became a full-time homemaker. He survived a medical emergency that could have ended his life in its first year, then grew up with his sister Tina and brother David in Korea, Zambia, Nepal, and Virginia. He also had three older brothers from his father's first marriage - Steve, Peter, and Jon.

His first major role was Nick Burns in A Thousand Clowns in Kathmandu at the age of 10. He appeared in several McLean (VA) High School productions (favorite role: Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) before graduating in 1979. A Theatre Arts major at Brown University (class of 1983), he acted in 17 shows and won the elocution prize. He later earned an M.F.A. in acting at the University of California San Diego (1989). UCSD shows included Strindberg Sonata directed by Anne Bogart. He worked for Bogart several more times. Other directors for whom Weems acted in multiple shows included Laurence Maslon, Tina Landau, Paul Mullins, Joe Dowling, Bartlett Sher, Doug Hughes, Daniel Fish, Davis McCallum, and Ethan McSweeny. Sher helped Weems become a Fox Foundation/ TCG fellow in 2005, then directed the premiere of his autobiographical Namaste Man in 2008. Hughes directed two of the four Broadway shows in which Weems appeared. Dowling directed him five times over a long span, from The Acting Company's national tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1991 to The Tempest at The Old Globe in 2018.

While Weems also appeared on TV and in a few films, his heart was in theater. He acted professionally in at least 97 theatrical productions. He won the St. Clair Bayfield award for his Thersites in Troilus and Cressida (TFANA, dir. Sir Peter Hall, 2001), was nominated for a Lucille Lortel award for his Cloten in Cymbeline (TFANA, dir. Bartlett Sher, 2002), and won the San Diego Theater Critics award for his Sganarelle in Don Juan (The Old Globe, dir. Stephen Wadsworth, 2004).

As his life voyage took him around the nation and the world, Weems left enduring friendships in his wake while successfully battling demons. He had been sober for 28 years when he died of esophageal cancer. He was anticipating a future with more writing than performing. His warmth, wit, dedication, and heart enriched the lives of his loving family and many very dear friends in the theater world and elsewhere. Their love and support in turn buoyed him when he needed it most.

Jeffrey Horowitz says: "Andy Weems was an artist with unquenchable imaginative emotional and verbal gifts for interpreting tragedy, comedy and irony. He was a favorite of some of the finest theater artists who wanted to work with Andy, and Andy always discovered the relevance and power of an author whether it was Shakespeare, John Ford, Gozzi, or a contemporary writer such as Darrah Cloud. He was a remarkable collaborator and an essential part of the artistic community at Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) and the larger American national theater. In 2001, TFANA became the first American theater company to be invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company. TFANA brought Cymbeline directed by Bartlett Sher. We opened on Thanksgiving, 2001, a few months after 9/11. Andy played Cloten. It's fair to say that the English had never seen a Cloten like it. After Stratford, Cymbeline came to NYC and Andy was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for his performance as Cloten in 2002."

At TFANA, Weems played in the world premiere of Mud Angel by Darrah Cloud, directed by Kevin Kuhlke; The Green Bird by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Julie Taymor - Off-Broadway and on Broadway; Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, directed by Sir Peter Hall (St. Clair Bayfield Award); Shakespeare's Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, at the RSC and TFANA (Lucille Lortel Nomination), and John Ford's The Broken Heart, directed by Selina Cartmell (now artistic director of Dublin's Gate Theatre).