The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Mint Theater Company will conclude its season dedicated to neglected plays by American women by presenting a rare New York revival of Rachel Crothers' 1937 Susan and God. Artistic Director Jonathan Bank will direct. Performances begin June 6th, with opening night scheduled for June 18th. The show will run through July 16th.
Recently, Mint was honored with three 2006 Drama Desk nominations, including Outstanding Revival of a Play for
Soldier's Wife, along with a nomination for Roger Hanna for his set design for
Walking Down Broadway and one for Judith Hawking for her performance in
Soldier's Wife.Susan and God marked the culmination of Crothers' career as both playwright and director. For over thirty years, her plays (such as
He and She and
When Ladies Meet) had lit up the Great White Way. Now, with
Susan and God, she once again reigned supreme. The play's initial run lasted 288 performances. In 1938, selections from the award-winning play were the first dramatic scenes broadcast on television, still an experimental medium. In 1943, the play was chosen to open City Center, with Gertrude Lawrence reprising her performance as Susan.
"Audiences were charmed by the endearingly selfish Susan, a socialite who embraces a new religious philosophy while abroad and returns home eager to change everyone around her," according to press notes. "On one level,
Susan and God satirizes the trendier aspects of the Oxford Group, a religious movement of the 1920's and 1930's. Pre-dating the spiritual trends of our day, the Oxford Group inspired everything from evangelical soirees to the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous."
Susan and God will feature
Opal Alladin, Heidi Armbruster, Jennifer Blood, Mathieu Cornillon, Alex Cramner, Timothy Deenihan, Katie Firth, Rob Gomes, Leslie Hendrix, and Anthony Newfield. Leslie Hendrix ("Law and Order") plays Susan.
Crothers (1878-1958) was the most prolific and successful female
dramatist writing for the American stage during the early years of the
twentieth century. In a career that lasted almost four decades
(1899-1937), Crothers contributed twenty-four full-length plays to the
New York stage. Because she was a talented craftswoman with a thorough
knowledge of her profession, most of these plays were critical and
popular successes. In addition, at least six of her early one-act plays
were produced and a number of others published, including five that
appeared in popular periodicals of the day such as "The Smart Set."
Mint Theater Company has excavated such worthy but neglected treasures as J.M. Barrie's
Echoes of the War, Arthur Schnitzler's
The Lonely Way and D.H. Lawrence's
The Daughter-in-Law, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play and named one of the top ten productions of the year in 2003 by
The New York Times. In 2001, the Mint was awarded an Obie grant for "combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition," and in 2002 a special Drama Desk Award for "Unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit." Mint has published two books: a volume of seven plays entitled, "Worthy But Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater Company" and "Arthur Schnitzler Reclaimed," which contains
The Lonely Way and
Far and Wide.
Susan and God will take place in the theater on the Third Floor of 311 West 43rd Street. Performances will be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 7 PM, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM. Tickets will be $35 through June 18th and $45 thereafter and are available by calling (212) 315-0231 or online at
www.minttheater.org.
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