The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Mint Theater Company (Jonathan Bank, Artistic Director) will begin its season dedicated to neglected plays by American women by presenting the world premiere of Dawn Powell's 1931 Walking Down Broadway. The show will begin September 15th and run though November 6th, with opening night set for September 25th at 7:00.
Walking Down Broadway was written in 1931 and never produced, although Fox bought the rights for Erich von Stroheim who made it into the movie Hello, Sister, which bears almost no resemblance to Powell's play. Marge and Elsie are two young girls newly arrived in New York from Marble Falls, Ohio. Unable to bear another night alone, the two office girls take to walking up and down Broadway where they meet two equally lonely and innocent young men. "Walking Down Broadway tells the story of love and lost innocence as unspoiled small-town naiveté collides with the bitterness and cynicism of world-weary New Yorkers—a theme that runs through almost all of Powell's writing. Written more than ten years after Powell's own arrival in New York from Ohio, it is tinged with nostalgia for her early days and yet unsparing, honest and almost startling for its mixture of romance and frankness," according to production notes.
"Dawn Powell, author of 16 novels, over 100 stories and 10 plays, was undervalued in her lifetime and virtually forgotten after her death—although she has never been without her ardent fans. Gore Vidal, a friend and champion wrote a piece for The New York Review of Books in 1987 stating that Powell, 'should have been as widely read as, say, Hemingway or the early Fitzgerald.' While Powell's prose is now enjoying a much-deserved revival of interest, she was also the author of ten plays, only two of which were ever produced. She dreamed of success as a playwright from her college days, but that proved to be even more elusive for her than as a novelist. The legendary Group Theater ruined her hard driving satiric comedy Big Night with ponderousness in 1933, and the Theater Guild failed to make a success of Jig Saw the following year, despite Brooks Atkinson's description of Powell's 'flair for breezy patter and topsy-turvy sophistication.'
Directed by Stephen Williford (Pera Palas, Halfway Home, Laundry and Lies), Walking Down Broadway will feature Christine Albright, Denis Butkus, Antony Hagopian, Carol Halstead, Amanda Jones, Emily Moment, Stacy Parker, Ben Roberts, Cherene Snow, and Sammy Tunis. Scenic design will be by Roger Hanna, costume design by Brenda Turpin, lighting design by Stephen Petrilli and sound design by Jane Shaw. Also planned for the year will be a reading on October 17th of Edith Wharton's own dramatization of her novel The House of Mirth, in celebration of the 100-year anniversary of its publication. Later in the year Mint will present Rachel Crother's comedy Susan and God, plus one other full production and at least one other reading.Performances of Walking Down Broadway (which will take place in the theater on the third floor of 311 W. 43rd St.) 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 are $35 through October 2nd and $45 thereafter and are available by calling (212) 315-0231 or online at www.minttheater.org.
