Marc Kudisch Joins Amanda Plummer in CT Summer and Smoke

Tony Award-nominee Marc Kudisch will join previously announced Tony Award-winner Amanda Plummer in Hartford Stage's production of Tennessee Williams' classic drama Summer and Smoke.  It will run from August 31st through October 1st.

Plummer will play Alma Winemiller, "an uptight minister's daughter, (who) secretly pines for the boy next door. Unfortunately, the boy next door is a young doctor whose shocking lifestyle has caused a scandal throughout Glorious Hill, Mississippi. Will Alma's frigid reserve melt in the smoke and heat of her newly awakened desire?," as the show is described in Hartford Stage notes.  Kudisch has been cast as John.

The production will be directed by Michael Wilson; it will be performed as the ninth annual entry in the company's 10-year-long Tennessee Williams Marathon.  Plummer and Kudisch will be joined by Jennifer Harmon, Terry Beaver, Nafe Katter, Joanna Morrison, Curtis Billings, Stephanie Beatriz, Bill Kux, Mateo Gomez, Marta Reiman, Elizabeth Capinera and John Ort.

A co-production with New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, Summer and Smoke will drift to that theatre for a run in January and February of 2007.  The role of Alma will be recast, as Plummer will be performing in Shakespeare with My Father in Montreal (the actress is the daughter of Christopher Plummer and Tammy Grimes).  Kudisch, however, will stay with the production.

Plummer won a Tony Award for her performance in Agnes of God, and has also been seen on Broadway in You Never Can Tell, The Glass Menagerie, and A Taste of Honey.  Her previous Hartford Stage appearances include Eight by Tenn, A Member of the Wedding and The Wake of Jamey Foster.  She is a three-time Emmy Award-winner for her work in "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," "The Outer Limits" and "Miss Rose White," while film credits include 8 1/2 Women, Pulp Fiction, and The Fisher King.

Kudisch received Tony Award nominations for his performances in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Thoroughly Modern Millie.  Other Broadway credits include Assassins, Bells Are Ringing, The Wild Party, High Society, and The Scarlet Pimpernel, while Off-Broadway, he has appeared in See What I Wanna See and The Thing About Men.

The production will feature sets by  Tony Straiges, costumes by David Woolard, lighting by Rui Rita and sound by John Gromada.