Mirror Repertory Co. Begins New Season - Geraint Wyn Davies Stars...

The Mirror Repertory Co. will premiere Leon Pownall's DO NOT GO GENTLE, a play about the famed and troubled poet Dylan Thomas with Geraint Wyn Davies in the starring role, on Monday, April 25th 2005 at the Arclight Theatre (152 west 71st St.) Previews begin April 22nd.

DO NOT GO GENTLE explores Dylan Thomas' addiction to booze, bawds, and that most potent drug of all: fame. It further explores Dylan's masochistic obsession with Shakespeare's writings. Geraint Wyn Davies who most recently seen in New York as Edmund in Lincoln Center's production of King Lear, which starred Christopher Plummer, will play the booze addicted Dylan Thomas. He also recently played Cyrano de Bergerac for the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC, for which he was nominated for the prestigious Helen Hayes award. Mr. Wyn Davies is best known for his work in such television series as Forever Knight, Tracker, Airwolf and others, as well as film cameos.

Leon Pownall has an extensive list of stage credits as a playwright and actor in Canada and the United States. Currently he is writing a one man show called Robertson Davies Forever Jung. The Mirror Repertory Company was founded in l983 by Sabra Jones Mc Ateer, Geraldine Page, Eva Le Gallienne, and John Strasberg. The late Laurance S. Rockefeller underwrote the company with a founding grant. It is an alternating Repertory Company in the classic sense, with a different production every night. Sabra Jones and Anthony D. Marshall produced Alice in Wonderland on Broadway as the company's first project, garnering a Tony nomination and giving Kate Burton her Broadway debut. It became a WNET 13 Masterworks film and starred Kate and her father Richard Burton. The Mirror Repertory Company past roster included Geraldine, Ellis Raab, and Elizabeth Franz, and Anthony Hopkins. The current company includes Austin Pendleton, F. Murray Abraham, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, Steven Weber, Enrico Colantoni, Maxwell Caulfield, Juliet Mills, Michael Moriarty, Tovah Feldshuh, and many others.

The Company produced sixteen plays in rep and fifteen regionally and has a highly regarded Arts in Education Program. Last season Mirror produced Edge in London and the show was produced here in New York by Daryl Roth. This production at the Arclight marks the company's return to New York City.

Performances will be on Wed. – Mon. at 8PM and Matinees are on Sunday at 3PM. DO NOT GO GENTLE will play six performances a week in rep with two performances of LILIA! and two performances of CLURMAN.

The Mirror Repertory Company has scheduled two other productions to be played in rep with Do Not Go Gentle:

LILIA! is the story of Lilia Skala, the talented actress made famous by her Academy Award nominated turn in Lilies in the Field, as told through the eyes of her granddaughter, playwright and actress Libby Skala. The play tells of Lilia's amazing life as she grew to prominence as an actress in Austria, fleeing the Third Reich, and her arrival in America, where the only work she could find was in a zipper factory in New York, and finally found her way to her beloved profession on stage and in film.

Libby Skala is a veteran of the New York stage and Hollywood herself (most recently appearing in the film Birth with Nicole Kidman.).

Harold Clurman is known as "The Elder Statesman of American Theater", and the one-man play has been written and will be played by Ronald Rand, a former student of Clurman's who resurrects the famous theatrical jack-of-all-trades and revered critic and teacher for one last lesson on passion. CLURMAN examines Harold's rise from the lower East Side of Manhattan, to his education in Paris, his initiation into theater at the Provincetown Playhouse, and his founding of the Group Theater with friend Lee Strasberg (father -in-law of Mirror Rep's Artistic Director) and future wife Stella. Ronald Rand, seasoned actor, playwright, and founder and editor of the theatrical paper Soul of the American Actor, brings the love for theater that Clurman embodied to the stage.

Performances of LILIA! are Tuesdays at 8PM and Wednesdays at 2PM. Performances of CLURMAN are Saturdays at 2PM and Sunday nights at 7PM.

Tickets are $30 and can be purchased by calling SmartTix at (212) 868-4444.