Tony Award-nominee Tovah Feldshuh, due to a conflict in Kate Burton's schedule, will have a bumpy night as Margo Channing in the Melting Pot Theatre Company's starry benefit of All About Eve. The show will be presented atthe Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow St. & Seventh Ave. South in
the West Village) on November 7th at 7:30 PM.
Using the 1951 radio-play version of Joseph L.
Mankiewicz' film script, All About Eve will also star Gregg Edelman and Jennifer Rae Beck, who has signed on to replace the previously-announced Kerry O'Malley.Feldshuh (Golda's Balcony, Lend Me a Tenor, Yentl) will play the larger-than-life theatre star Margo Channing, whose decision to take aspiring actress Eve Harrington (played by Beck) under her wing leads to backstabbing and betrayal. Tony Award-nominee Edelman (Into the Woods, City of Angels) will play Margo's director boyfriend Bill Sampson, while the reading will also feature Jonathan Hadary as the suavely nasty theatre critic Addison DeWitt, Tony Award-nominee Emily Skinner (Side Show, The Full Monty) as the dishy Ms. Caswell, David Ogden Stiers as Lloyd, Christine Pedi (Forbidden Broadway) as gossip columnist Libby Collins, Tamara Tunie (Julius Caesar) as Margo's pal Karen, Jackie Hoffman (Hairspray) as Birdie, Adam Heller (Caroline, or Change, A Class Act) as John Milton Kennedy, and Patrick Quinn (The Sound of Music, Beauty and the Beast)
as producer William Keighley, among others. Nick
Corley will direct the reading, which uses the "Lux Radio Theatre"
script.
All About Eve won
the 1950 Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as five others. Bette
Davis, who had the role of a lifetime as Margo, received an Oscar
nomination, as did co-stars Anne Baxter, Thelma Ritter and Celeste Holm
(Sanders, as Addison DeWitt, won). Manckiewicz picked up Oscars for
both his direction and his barbed screenplay, which paid critical put
loving tribute to the theatre world. Applause, the 1970 musical adaptation by Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, starred Lauren Bacall and Penny Fuller and was a hit at 896 performances. Both Bacall and the musical itself received Tony Awards.
The Melting Pot Theatre Company, according to press notes, "creates,
develops, and produces New York
premieres of plays and musicals that explore the themes, people, and
events that shape the unique American experience." Last season, the
company presented another benefit featuring a radio play adaptation of
a classic movie--It's a Wonderful Life.Ticket
can be purchased for $300 and $600 each; rows of 10 are available at
$3,000 and $6,000. A limited number of show-only tickets are available
for
$100, as well, and a good portion of each (tax-deductible) ticket will
be given to charity. A 9 PM post-show reception at Agave (140 Seventh
Ave., South & West 10th St.) will follow the reading. For tickets, call MPTC at (212) 874-7210, send a fax to (212) 874-6054 or e-mail Sean@MeltingPotTheatre.com. Visit www.meltingpottheatre.com for more information.