Mint Theater Company Continues Free Streaming Series With DAYS TO COME, KATIE ROCHE and More

Mint Theater Company Artistic Director Jonathan Bank today announced the line-up for Mint's popular Streaming Series for 2021, featuring HD recordings of past productions: Days To Come by Lillian Hellman, directed by J.R. Sullivan (will begin airing January 4th and continue through February 21st); Katie Roche by Teresa Deevy, directed by Jonathan Bank (2/1- 3/28); Women Without Men by Hazel Ellis, directed by Jenn Thompson (2/22 to 3/21); Yours Unfaithfully by Miles Malleson, directed by Jonathan Bank (3/22 to 5/16); A Picture of Autumn by N.C Hunter, directed by Gus Kaikkonen (3/29 to 5/23); and The Fatal Weakness by George Kelly, directed by Jesse Marchese (5/17 to 6/13), all at Mint's virtual theater, MintTheater.org. The price of admission is FREE. To receive a password, visit MintTheater.org.

Mint has been investing in creating professionally shot and edited full length archival videos since 2013. No Zoom boxes or Computer-Generated Imagery, these are professional quality, hi-definition, three-camera recordings of live performances, captured in the theater with live audiences. "If you've never seen a Mint show, I can assure you that the company's special qualities come through on video," said Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal.

"We first offered streaming of a few shows last July. I crammed three shows into two weeks because I was skeptical that anyone would watch and I figured they might as well sample a few minutes of several shows and get a sense of our range. It turned out I was wrong. More than 500 households watched all three plays and another 1400 watched one or two. People from every state in the union and 43 different countries. We offered Conflict by Miles Malleson over a three-week period in October and November-this time, about 4,000 households tuned in. 75% of our viewers had never seen a Mint play," said Mr. Bank.

Audience response to Mint's streaming has been extraordinary:

"Your streaming production of Conflict was superb! Bravo to you for capturing it on film, and double-bravo for sharing during the pandemic. With the absence of live theatre (performing and spectating) this was a joy to watch." Pottstown PA

"We very much enjoyed the play, and it was a wonderful experience amidst this pandemic recalling the enjoyment of live theater. We look forward to the time we can attend in person. Thanks for streaming a wonderful play and engaging production." Newton MA

"Thank you for streaming some of your productions, which are little gems! I run a Theatre Studies group in Cheshire, UK, we are all retired people, members of the local U3A and in normal times, very keen theatre goers. There are so many wonderful theatres to support here in the UK but it's been just great to see your productions." Bunbury, U.K.

"I feel like your plays saved my life in lockdown-and others I sent your links to feel the same. Never heard of you. But I love theater and think saving well-made plays a very worthy goal." Red Hook, NY

"As proud as we are of the response to our streaming, we are just as proud that our streaming over the course of the pandemic is providing over 100 actors, stage managers and directors with weekly paychecks under union contracts, including pension and health insurance contributions," said Mr. Bank.

"Although the Mint Theater Company is justly lauded for its rehabilitation of forgotten works - the group's mission is to bring 'new vitality to worthy but neglected plays' - I don't think Jonathan Bank's outfit gets enough credit for its unwavering dedication to women writers. If I have some issues with the conservative way the productions are staged, but I have none with the group's dedication and fairness. The Mint made its reputation with shows by the likes of Harley Granville-Barker, J.B. Priestley and A.A. Milne, but for me, it's the plays written by women that have resonated the most. Maybe because the pay-off is sweeter: These women had descended into an obscurity even more pitch-black than that of the male writers produced by the Mint - if it's hard for female writers to make it to the stage, it's even harder for their works to be revived," said Elisabeth Vincentelli in The NY Post. Mint is proud to offer three long forgotten plays from Lillian Hellman, Teresa Deevy, and Hazel Ellis.

"Days To Come turns out to be a gripping piece of storytelling, one whose failure and subsequent obscurity make no sense at all. This is the 14th Mint Theater revival that I've reviewed since 2005, and the 14th time I've raved about the results. Such unfailing excellence merits much wider recognition. If you've yet to see what the Mint can do, start here!" said Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. Lillian Hellman's second play, Days to Come, is a family drama set against the backdrop of labor strife in a small Ohio town which threatens to tear apart both town and family. "It's the story of innocent people on both sides who are drawn into conflict and events far beyond their comprehension," Hellman said in an interview before Days to Come opened in 1936. "It's the saga of a man who started something he cannot stop..." J.R. Sullivan directs a cast that features Mary Bacon, Janie Brookshire, Larry Bull, Chris Henry Coffey, Dan Daily, Ted Deasy, Roderick Hill, Betsy Hogg, Kim Martin-Cotton, Geoffrey Allen Murphy, and Evan Zes.

Katie Roche was the third production of Mint's ambitious multi-year project dedicated to the brilliant Teresa Deevy. Mint single-handedly put Deevy back onto the literary map with their acclaimed productions of Wife To James Whelan (2010), and Temporal Powers (2011), Katie Roche (2013) and The Suitcase Under the Bed in 2017. "This glowing, evocative production is the third play in the Mint Theater's survey of the work of the nearly forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. It's a weird and wonderful play from 1936, whose central character, vivaciously brought to complex life by Wrenn Schmidt, is an exuberant serving girl of dubious parentage in a cottage household in Lower Ballycar. Katie has ambitions of sainthood or riches, whichever comes first; then Stanislaus Gregg (Patrick Fitzgerald), the head of the house, asks for her hand. Fitzgerald gives a memorably controlled and borderline creepy performance. The director, Jonathan Bank, with the help of a rich, red-wallpapered set by Vicki R. Davis, and superb, subtle lighting by Nicole Pearce, creates a world in which longing seems tangible. Deevy's dialogue is practically minimalist, but in very few words an entire culture is revealed, and the mysteries of the human heart explored," wrote Ken Marks in The New Yorker. The title role in Katie Roche is played by Wrenn Schmidt who appeared as Julia Sagorsky in HBO's Emmy-nominated "Boardwalk Empire." Also featured in the cast of Katie Roche, directed by Mr. Bank, are Margaret Daly, Patrick Fitzgerald, Jon Fletcher, David Friedlander, Jamie Jackson, John O'Creagh, and Fiana Toibin.

Mint's production of Women Without Men was its first revival since its first two-week run in Dublin in 1938-and its American Premiere. "Hazel Ellis's Women Without Men, produced by the Mint Theater Company at City Center, concentrates on a group of unmarried women who have stayed school teachers out of helplessness or inertia rather than any calling or passion. Deprived of much freedom and many comforts (they have one afternoon off per week and hot baths are a rationed luxury), they turn on one another, fanning trifling grievances, exaggerating minor slights. A newcomer to the school, the still idealistic Miss Wade (Emily Walton), marvels, 'Why should we all unite in making each other's lives a little hell of trivial tortures?'" said The New York Times. Notably, it continued Mint's efforts to produce the work of forgotten female dramatists. "For me, it's the plays written by women that have resonated the most. Maybe because the pay-off is sweeter: these women had descended into an obscurity even more pitch-black than that of the male writers produced by the Mint - if it's hard for female writers to make it to the stage, it's even harder for their works to be revived. This production shows the Mint doing what it does best: finding long-lost works that remain remarkably stage-worthy today," said David Barbour in Lighting and Sound America. Jenn Thompson directed an all-female cast that includes Mary Bacon, Joyce Cohen, Shannon Harrington, Kate Middleton, Aedin Moloney, Alexa Shae Niziak, Kellie Overbey, Dee Pelletier, Beatrice Tulchin, Emily Walton, and Amelia White. Women Without Men was nominated for five Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Play, Outstanding Featured Actress for Kellie Overbey, and Outstanding Director for Jenn Thompson.

For Yours Unfaithfully, a New York Times Critic's Pick, Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank directed a cast that featured Todd Cerveris, Mikaela Izquierdo, Elisabeth Gray, Stephen Schnetzer, and 2015 Tony & Drama Desk Award nominee, Max von Essen (An American In Paris). Alexis Soloski, writing in The New York Times said "Yours Unfaithfully, Miles Malleson's 1933 play, now receiving its world premiere at the Mint Theater, is a refined, rueful and often shrewd comedy about polyamory, written decades before open relationships were quite so openly discussed. In some ways, it's surprising that it went unproduced for so long. Its subject is no more scandalous than those of several plays by George Bernard Shaw or Harley Granville Barker, another Mint favorite. Yours Unfaithfully is both a daring play and a highly conventional one. Under the polished direction of Jonathan Bank, and in the hands of a fine team of designers, its arguments remain provocative, while its structure feels familiar, its tone decorous. Maybe that only makes it more unusual. It's a bit like a sex farce with real sorrow instead of slammed doors, and something like a drawing room comedy with moral conundrums peeking out beneath the cushions. It is often very funny; it is also very nearly a tragedy."

"A Picture of Autumn is impressive in every way, and the Mint's staging, directed with quiet intelligence by Gus Kaikkonen and acted by a top-drawer ensemble cast, is so strong that in a perfect world it would trigger a general revival of interest in Hunter's work," said Mr. Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. The New Yorker agreed: "N. C. Hunter's beautiful, shamefully neglected comedy was performed only once in London in 1951, and receives its American première here. It's about an aging, once prosperous family living in an aging, once grand manor, and the echoes of Chekhov are unmistakable, if subdued and anglicized. It's a big, generous play, exquisitely written, both funny and touching. The director, Gus Kaikkonen, sets a wonderful pace and tone for his excellent nine-actor company, led by George Morfogen, Jill Tanner, Jonathan Hogan, and Barbara Eda-Young, who display superb comic timing and emotional depth as the four ancients in the old house that afflicts and nurtures them all..." The New York Times chimed in with "The cast is stellar! George Morfogen gives a standout performance! Barbara Eda-Young is likewise terrific. There is much to empathize with in this perceptive, sensitive production." Featured in the cast are Helen Cespedes, Barbara Eda-Young, Mark Emerson, Katie Firth, Jonathan Hogan, George Morfogen, Paul Niebanck, Jill Tanner, and Christian Coulson who gained worldwide attention for his role as Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Terry Teachout, reviewing in The Wall Street Journal said "the Mint Theater, which has a near-perfect track record of exhuming forgotten plays of the previous century that deserve a happier fate, has gone back to the well with George Kelly, the once-famous author of The Show-Off, whose Philip Goes Forth the Mint produced to brilliant effect last season. This time around it is The Fatal Weakness, an identically impressive play by Mr. Kelly that opened on Broadway in 1946, ran for three months and thereafter went unseen until now. No doubt the ambiguity of The Fatal Weakness explains its initial lack of success. It's a smart, polished not-quite-comedy about the high price of adultery whose upper-crust characters are unlikable and whose moral-if you care to call it that-is uncomfortable. As usual at the Mint, the acting and staging are smoothly impeccable (with Cynthia Darlow making the biggest splash as a relentlessly gossipy busybody), and Vicki R. Davis's sitting-room set looks like the kind of thing you'd see on Broadway if Broadway still did plays like this." "Here in 2014, the Mint Theater Company is making this George Kelly work an amusing, affecting reminder that the institution of marriage has been under siege for much longer than we tend to think. Another fine revisiting by the Mint Theater Company. The play starts out as a comedy but ends as a rather poignant melodrama, and it shows us that the epidemic of divorce and the questioning of marriage as an institution are not the recent phenomena that we might have thought," said Neil Genzlinger in The New York Times.

Mint was awarded an OBIE Award for "combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition" and a special Drama Desk Award for "unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit."

To learn more about Mint's Streaming, go to minttheater.org. The price of admission is FREE. To receive a password, visit MintTheater.org.

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