Photo Flash: Metropolitan Playhouse Opens 25th Season with END OF SUMMER Tonight

Obie Award winning Metropolitan Playhouse revives END OF SUMMER, S.N. Behrman's 1936 comedy of opportunists in an age of unequal incomes, to be directed by prolific author/director Alexander Harrington, at The Playhouse (220 E 4th Street, New York City), running tonight, October 7, through November 6, 2016. BroadwayWorld has a look at the cast in action below!

Oil heiress Leonie Frothingham whiles away a summer at her seaside "cottage," where cocktails flow with the tides, and lovers come and go like mosquitoes. Her estranged husband Sam and her just-come-of-age daughter Paula, as well as, humor Leonie's flirtations as matter-of-course for the ultra-wealthy floating above the conventional rules of the world. But while the Great Depression ravages most of the country, even Leonie's idyllic retreat is not wholly protected from the quakes of the times. Paula and her idealistic fiancé, the nearly-committed Socialist Will Dexter, cultivate youthful, challenging misgivings about Capitalism and its beneficiaries. More insidiously, Leonie's latest flame, the psychoanalyst Kenneth Rice, insinuates himself into each relationship and psyche with a disinterested clinical eye that somehow manages to get him everything and everyone he wants. With subtle and penetrating insights, all in the course of a beautiful summer, END OF SUMMER exposes the forces that build fortunes, tear apart families, and buttress the American society of haves, have-nots, and the revolution waiting in the wings.

END OF SUMMER is directed by ALEXANDER HARRINGTON (La MaMa, The Culture Project, author of The Great Society and The Brothers Karamazov. The production stars Erin Beirnard ("Recklessness" at Metropolitan, Storm Theatre, Irondale Ensemble), Andrew Bryce (Alphabet City XII), STAN BUTURLA, Kelly Cooper (A Man's World, Within the Law), David Friedlander (The Boss), MICHAEL HARDART (The Henrietta), Mary McNulty, BRIAN OTT, and Sarah Saltus. Set design is by CAO XUEMEI. Lighting by Christopher Weston (O'NEILL (Unexpected), The Awful Truth, Injunction Granted). Costumes by NYIT Award winner Sidney Fortner (O'NEILL (Unexpected), Walk Hard, Alison's House, The House of Mirth). Stage Manager is WILLIAM VANN CARLTON.

Tickets are $30 general; $25 students/seniors; $10 children, and may be purchased online at www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/tickets or by telephone at 800 838 3006.

Photo Credit: Alex Roe

Andrew Bryce and Mary McNulty

Mary McNulty and Kelly Cooper

Erin Beirnard and Kelly Cooper

Andrew Bryce and Kelly Cooper