'Voysey' Extends Again at Atlantic; Parlour Song Postponed

For a third time, the Atlantic Theater Company has extended its hit production of Harley Granville Barker's drama The Voysey Inheritance, presented in a new adaptation by David Mamet.  The show will now run through March 25th.

Due to the extension, the theatre's world premiere production of Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song - previously slated to open in March - has been postponed to the 2007-2008 season. 

In addition, the previously untitled project with a score by Grammy Award-nominee Patty Griffin, book by Keith Bunin (The Busy World is Hushed) and direction by Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) is now called 10 Million Miles.  Dates and casting have not yet been announced for the production, which will complete the Atlantic's 2006-2007 season.

Directed by David Warren (Broadway's Holiday, Summer and Smoke, Hobson's Choice at the Atlantic), The Voysey Inheritance began previews Wednesday, November 15 and opened on Wednesday, December 6.  It was originally slated to play through January 7th, but extended through January 21st and then through February 10th.

The Voysey Inheritance features Tony Award-nominee Michael Stuhlbarg (The Pillowman, Measure for Pleasure, The Invention of Love), Tony Award-winner Fritz Weaver (Ring Round The Moon, The Crucible, Child's Play), Atlantic Company members Steven Goldstein (Atlantic's Romance) and Todd Weeks (Broadway's The Full Monty) and Rachel Black (Necessary Targets), Christopher Duva (Broadway's The Elephant Man), Peter Maloney (Atlantic's Celebration and The Room), Katharine Powell (The Water's Edge), Judith Roberts (Broadway's Present Laughter), Geddeth Smith (Broadway's Waiting In The Wings), Samantha Soule (Broadway's Dinner at Eight) and CJ Wilson (Broadway's Festen). 

"Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Atlantic Theater Company co-founder David Mamet returns to Atlantic following the acclaimed world premiere production of his comedy Romance, which subsequently enjoyed celebrated engagements at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and The Almeida Theatre in London. Mamet founded Atlantic Theater Company with actor William H. Macy in 1985, and over the last twenty years the company has staged more than two dozen of the prolific playwright's works including Edmond, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Water Engine," state press materials.

Mamet's new adaptation of Harley Granville Barker's classic play "explores the timely issue of morals vs. money as an upper middle class family goes to pieces when it is revealed that the patriarch (Fritz Weaver) has amassed the family fortune by secretly embezzling money from his clients.  As his son (Michael Stuhlbarg) tries to put things in order, he discovers that the family is more than willing to perpetuate this way of doing business, rather than sacrifice their comfort and luxury."

The design team features scenic design by Derek McLane, costume design by Gregory Gale, lighting design by Jeff Croiter, sound design by Fitz Patton, dialect coaching by Stephen Gabis and production stage management by Freda Farrell.

One of the influential pioneers of modern British drama and a contemporary of George Bernard Shaw, Granville-Barker wrote The Voysey Inheritance in 1905. One hundred years after its publication, David Mamet's world premiere adaptation of the classic play opened at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco in March 2005.

Visit www.atlantictheater.org for tickets and more information.

Photo - Michael Stuhlbarg