Caldwell Presents Special NYE Performance Of 'FROST/NIXON'

The Caldwell Theatre Company will present the Southeast regional premiere of Peter Morgan's award-winning Frost/Nixon, beginning with a special 9pm performance on New Year's Eve. Previews continue on January 4th, with an official opening of January 9th, 2009.

Bruce Sabath will play beleaguered President Richard Nixon. Sabath played Larry in the 2006-07 Tony-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company, and was most recently seen in The Jerusalem Syndrome, winner of the Theatre of the American Musical Prize at the 2008 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Sabath's most recent Florida appearance was in Florida Studio Theatre's 2005-06 production of Brooklyn Boy, for which Sabath won the Handy Award for best supporting actor in a play or musical. Wynn Harmon (Porgie and Bess) will play British talk show host David Frost.

In addition to Sabath and Harmon, the production features Ashley Ellenburg, Daniel Gibson, Peter Haig, Robert Herrle, Margery Lowe, Jake Molzan, Michael St. Pierre and Tom Wahl. The play is directed by The Caldwell's Artistic Director, Michael Hall.

The Caldwell Theatre Company, founded in 1975, will present Frost/Nixon in the Count de Hoernle Theatre, its new 333-seat proscenium theatre facility, which opened its doors in late 2007.

This production of Frost/Nixon is just the third U.S. production to follow the award-winning London/Broadway production, the first being the current national tour starring Stacy Keach, and the second, a co-production by the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Rochester's Geva Theatre. A film adaptation of Frost/Nixon featuring original London/Broadway stars Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, opened nationwide on December 25th, and has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe awards.

In a November 17, 2008 appearance on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," David Frost reminisced about his insightful interviews with former president Richard Nixon that unfolded as a television event watched by millions, ultimately unmasking the man at the center of Watergate. The four 90-minute taped segments (that David Frost largely financed himself) were aired on Frost's program, "Frost On America," whose previous guests included Tennessee Williams and Jack Benny. The interviews took place over a 12-day period in 1977 and totaled 28 ¾ hours, two days of which were devoted exclusively to the Watergate scandal.

These very powerful and intimate tête-à-têtes are the basis of Peter Morgan's play, Frost/Nixon, an in-depth examination of Nixon and Frost's conversations that evolved into a war of wits between two equally pugnacious adversaries. Nixon embodied the systemic abuse of the public trust when he left office and he and his advisers believed that these interviews with Frost would rehabilitate his reputation.

In his chat with Jon Stewart, David Frost said that Nixon wasn't very good at small talk and was often nervous before taping, while cool as a cucumber on camera (generally the opposite of how most people react when televised). When Nixon signed the contract for the television interviews, Frost - in the hopes of breaking the ice and easing the tension - mentioned to Nixon a newspaper report he had read that day about Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964-1982 and former President. Nixon responded by saying, "I wouldn't want to be a Russian leader - they never know when they're being taped."

Witness two intelligent, complicated, quick-witted transformational historical figures in Caldwell's Frost/Nixon. America's collective past was rewritten with Nixon's evasions, admissions and Frost's perseverance.

For more information on the Caldwell Theatre Company's production of Frost/Nixon, call (561) 241-7432 or (877) 245-7432 or visit www.caldwelltheatre.com.

For more on Bruce Sabath, visit www.BruceSabath.com

 

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