Lincoln
Center Theater's Platform Series, a forum for public discussion between
Lincoln Center Theater artists and interested theatergoers, will continue its
2005-2006 season on Thursday, April 20, at 6:30 pm with a pre-performance
talk with Bartlett Sher and Michael Yeargan, the respective director and set designer of LCT's new production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!
Platform Series events take place
between 6:30 pm to 7:15 pm, in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theater
(150 West 65th Street). Admission is free and open to all; however,
seating in the lobby is limited and available on a first-come, first-served
basis only, beginning at 6:00 pm. (Speakers and schedules are subject to
change. Call 212-362-7600 to confirm on the day of the event.).
Sherreceived 2005
Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for his direction
of Lincoln Center Theater's The Light in the Piazza. He also
directed the New York productions of Waste (2000 Obie Award Best
Play), Cymbeline (2001 Callaway Award for Best Direction, Lortel
and Drama Desk nominations, and first American Shakespeare production presented
at the Royal Shakespeare Company), Don Juan, Pericles (BAM and TFANA).
He is the Artistic Director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre and has
directed many productions there. Upcoming New York productions include
Barber of Seville at The Metropolitan Opera, and South Pacific
at LCT.
Michael Yeargan
won both the Tony and Drama Desk
Awards for his designs for LCT's The
Light in the Piazza, Outer
Critics Circle Award nomination). On Broadway, he has also designed:
The Ritz,
Bad Habits, Hay
Fever; Ah,
Wilderness!, and Athol
Fugard's A Lesson
From Aloes. he has
designed off-Broadway, in London, and at Canada's Stratford Festival.
His opera credits Otello,
Ariadne auf Naxos, Cosi Fan Tutti, Don Giovanni, Susanna, The Great Gatsby
and their upcoming Barber of Seville for Metropolitan
Opera; Norma, Madama
Butterfly, Tosca, La Finta, Giardiniera, and Central Park for
NY City Opera. He is
a professor of Stage Design at the Yale School of Drama.
Awake and Sing! began performances Friday, March 24th on Broadway at the Belasco
Theatre (111 West 44 Street), the very theatre where the play had its
world premiere in 1935. Opening night is scheduled for Monday, April
17th. Lincoln Center Theater's production will celebrate playwright
Odets' Centenary.Lauren Ambrose ("Six Feet Under"), Mark Ruffalo (films such as 13 Going on 30, off-Bway's This is Our Youth), Ben Gazzara (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Jonathan Hadary (All Shook Up, Gypsy), and Zoe Wanamaker (Electra, Piaf) will star in the play, which will also feature Ned Eisenberg (The Green Bird), Peter Kybart (Judgment at Nuremberg, The Diary of Anne Frank), Pablo Schreiber (Mr. Marmalade) and Richard Topol (Julius Caesar, The School for Scandal)."Awake and Sing! is the story
of a Jewish family in the Bronx who have fallen on hard times during the
Depression. Widely considered Odets' masterpiece, the drama premiered on Broadway in 1935 and, a resounding hit, was the legendary Group Theatre's
first Broadway production," according to press notes.
Lincoln
Center Theater's platform series was introduced in the summer of 1998.
Transcripts of the previous talks are available on-line at www.lct.org, as is ticket information for Awake and Sing!