Cromer Led OUR TOWN Hits 'Our Town' at Barrow St., Previews Begin 2/17

This production marks the official debut collaboration between Jean DoumanianProductions and Barrow Street Theatre who recently announced a creative partnership to bring innovative works and artists to Off Broadway, and will take place during the 70th anniversary year of Our Town's Broadway premiere (Pulitzer Prize, 1938). The two companies are currently collaborating on Barrow Street Fortnight2, athree-week celebration of new improv, sketch comedy, music and solo shows, currentlyrunning at the downtown venue.

Cromer, who directed last season‘s hit musical, Adding Machine, and who next season will make his Broadway directing debut with Neil Simon‘s Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound, will himself perform the central role of 'Stage Manager‘ in this stagingof Wilder‘s timeless play in which the action takes place in, among and around theaudience, creating an intimacy between actors and audience and a powerful encounterwith the play‘s searching questions about family, community and mortality.

In a statement, film and theatre producer Doumanian said, -This production of Our Town is an intimate, original staging of what is arguably America‘s most popular play and we are thrilled to bring it to New York. David Cromer has given us a timely rendering of aclassic work that will continue to speak to new audiences. She added, -I am particularly delighted to launch my company‘s collaboration with Barrow Street Theatre - one thatScott (Morfee), Tom (Wirtshafter) and I know will help make possible a whole new wave of exciting work for Off Broadway.

David Cromer‘s production of the Joshua Schmidt/Jason Loewith musical AddingMachine (Minetta Lane Theatre), also produced by Barrow Street Theatre‘s Scott Morfee and Tom Wirtshafter, earned him unanimous critical acclaim and OBIE and Lucille Lortelawards as Best Director. Adding Machine received four OBIE Awards and Outer CriticsCircle and Lucille Lortel awards as Best Musical.One of Chicago‘s most respected andprolific theater artists, Mr. Cromer most recently staged praised productions of William Inge‘s Picnic at Writers‘ Theatre, and the premiere of Celebrity Row by Itmar Moses atAmerican Theater Company, in addition to Our Town, which he directed for HypocritesTheater Company.

Our Town will feature set design and props by Michele Spadaro, and lighting design byHeather Gilbert. Jean Doumanian Productions is currently a lead producer on the Broadway production ofTracy Letts‘ Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County, for which the company is also producing the feature film adaptation.

The company‘s previous Broadway credits include Tom Stoppard‘s Jumpers, Michael Frayn‘s Democracy, Frankie andJohnny in the Clair de Lune and Amour; and Off-Broadway credits include The Great America Trailer Park Musical, Fuddy Meers, Bat Boy the Musical, Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight, Dinah Was, and Death Defying Acts. Scott Morfee and Tom Wirtshafter have been producing together since 2001, and operating Barrow Street Theater since 2003.

Their collaborations have included award-winning productions of Bug by Tracy Letts, Orson's Shadow by Austin Pendleton, NilajaSun‘s No Child, The Civilians‘ Gone Missing, and the musical Adding Machine by JoshuaSchmidt/Jason Loewith.The performance schedule for Our Town is as follows: Tuesday - Friday at 8 p.m.,Saturday at 3 p.m. & 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. Tickets are available throughsmarttix (212)868.4444, www.smarttix.com, or at the Barrow Street Theatre box office(open at 1 p.m. daily).Barrow Street Theatre is located at 27 Barrow Street at 7 th Avenue South in the heart ofGreenwich Village. Nearby subway stops are the 1 at Christopher Street (walk 1 blockSouth on 7 th Avenue to Barrow) and the A, C, E, B, D, F and V at West 4 th (walk West on 4 th Street, left on Barrow).Casting and other Our Town news will be announced shortly.

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whoseworks explore the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions ofhuman experience. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, thesecond of his seven novels, and received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Our Town (1938)and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). His hit play The Matchmaker (1954) was adapted as themusical Hello, Dolly! and he enjoyed enormous success as a teacher, lecturer, translatorand adaptor, actor and librettist. His screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day. Wilder's many honors includethe Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, thePresidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.

David Cromer is a freelance theatre director currently based in Chicago. He directed the World Premiere of Orson's Shadow at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, as well as Off-Broadway at The Barrow Street Theatre, the Alley Theatre in Houston, the WilliamstownTheatre Festival and The Westport Country Playhouse. Other regional credits include TheGrapes of Wrath at Ford‘s Theatre in Washington DC, and a recent return to The Alley todirect Sarah Ruhl‘s The Clean House. His extensive credits in Chicago include: the WorldPremiere of Adding Machine: A Chamber Musical (based on the play by Elmer Rice) atNext Theatre, Come Back Little Sheba at Shattered Globe, The Cider House Rules atFamous Door (co-directed with Marc Grapey), The Dazzle and Golden Boy at Steppenwolf, The Price and Booth at Writers Theatre, Angels in America at TheJourneymen, Betty's Summer Vacation at Roadworks, MOJO and The Hot l Baltimore at Mary-Arrchie, Journey's End and Translations at Seanachai, among others. He wasArtistic Director of Big Game Theatre from 1991-93 where he directed The Sirens of Titan,Lydie Breeze, On the Bum, Spring Awakening and Women and Water. He wasnominated for the Joseph Calloway Award in 2005 for his direction of the New Yorkproduction of Orson's Shadow. His productions in Chicago have won a total of 16 JosephJefferson Awards including Best Production and Best Director for The Cider House Rules,The Price, and Angels in America.

Jean Doumanian Productions (Producer) Based in New York City, Jean DoumanianProductions produces works for film and theatre. Under the leadership of Ms.Doumanian, the company has produced films by David Mamet (The Spanish Prisoner), David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls), Woody Allen (Bullets Over Broadway, EveryoneSays I Love You, Mighty Aphrodite, Deconstructing Harry, Sweet and Lowdown,Celebrity, and Small Time Crooks), Barbara Kopple (Wild Man Blues), and JasonAlexander (Just Looking).

The company‘s productions have been nominated for multipleAcademy Awards and Golden Globes, including Sven Nykvist‘s The Ox, which wasnominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. Currently, JeanDoumanian Productions is a lead producer on August: Osage County on Broadway.Written by Tracy Letts, August won five 2008 Tony Awards including Best Play andearned the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. The company‘s other Broadway credits include TomStoppard‘s Jumpers, Michael Frayn‘s Democracy, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair deLune and Amour, and Off-Broadway highlights include The Great American Trailer ParkMusical, Fuddy Meers, Bat Boy the Musical, Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight,Dinah Was, and Death Defying Acts.

Barrow Street Theatre is the venerable Off-Broadway venue located in the WestVillage operated by Scott Morfee and Tom Wirtshafter. Barrow Street Theatre has been home to the following productions, among others: Orson's Shadow by Austin Pendleton, BUG by Tracy Letts, Gone Missing by The Civilians, No Child... by Nilaja Sun, TJ & Dave,The Atheist, In Conflict, Mike Daisey's How Theatre Failed America, What's My Line, anoak tree by Tim Crouch, Red Light Winter by Adam Rapp, Eat the Taste by Greg Kotisand Roadhouse: The Stage Play by Timothy Haskell.

Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

To post a comment, you must register and login.