Now playing through March 2
Developed and first presented at The Actors Studio in 2003, Edge, written and directed by Paul Alexander, is set on the last day in the life of legendary poet Sylvia Plath. Over the past four years, Edge has played to audiences around the world, from the United States and England to New Zealand to Australia. It stars Angelica Torn the daughter of Rip Torn and Geraldine Page. “Angelica Torn plays Plath as a sexy, brittle and laceratingly funny woman...It’s a performance not to be missed.” - New York Post
Now playing through March 30th
A counter cultural landmark, which attracted the intervention of the Federal Government when the Living Theatre debuted it in 1963, is as much a mind-altering substance as anything that came out of the Sixties. This sly and brutal play, based on playwright Kenneth Brown's experiences in a Japanese Marine Corps prison, uses the tedium of military drills to probe the debilitating effects of authoritarianism. Now a massive hit in its New York revival, original cast member and KOAN member Tom Lillard and his extraordinarily committed cast make clear the psychological costs of discipline as it edges, inexorably, into sadism.
March 22 through May 11
ANeil Simon at the Odyssey!! We couldn’t pass this one up. Join guest stars George Segal and Richard Benjamin and Ross Benjamin for a night of hilarity, as two aging ex-vaudeville stars, who can’t stand each other, re-team for a History of Comedy network special. Jeffrey Hayden (FENCES and DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS) returns to direct two old friends in this delicious laugh romp. “It’s ham on wry!” –N.Y. Post. “Delicious and oddly affecting.” –N.Y. Daily News
Opens in July
This shockingly theatrical German satire by Bertolt Brecht was the OTE’s very first production in 1969 at its little 81-seat Hollywood Blvd. location. It put the Odyssey on the “theatrical map” and was highly relevant to the Vietnam era. Now, it seems highly timely to again take on Brecht’s Chaplin-esqe/Commedia del Arte/horror comedy. MAN… is part of Brecht’s highly stylized, early period, while he was most influenced by American film comics like Chaplin and Keaton. Join the KOAN UNIT with Widow Begbick and the girls of her “drinking canteen”, the savage Sgt. Bloody Five, the poor patsy Gayly Gay (originally played by Peter Lorre), a Marx Brothers-like “machine gun unit” and a host of eccentric characters that only Brecht could invent. And most exciting, OTE commissions a brand new musical score for this old/ever-new fable. An evening that promises to be haunting, hilarious and excruciatingly perceptive.
Opens in August
The time is late 2009 in an elite psychiatric clinic. The star patient… George W. Bush! And what is the mind-boggling secret revealed by his therapy?! The Odyssey co-produces with York Theatre Royal in England the World Premiere of this astonishing and bold new work by internationally renowned playwright, Donald Freed. “The most political and pertinent of all American playwrights” Studs Terkel. “A writer of blazing imagination, courage and insight” Harold Pinter. Don't miss this fiery and controversial pre-election event, personally directed by Freed. WORLD PREMIERE!
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Opens in September
Written by Martin Sherman, directed by Joan Mankin and performed by Naomi Newmann. This one-woman play takes the audience on a restless journey through 20th century Jewish life; from a Ukrainian shtetl to the Warsaw ghetto to Atlantic City and Miami, with side trips to a hippie commune in Connecticut and an Israeli settlement on the West Bank. “Rose is an exercise in pure storytelling” (The Washington Post), erasing the lines between the personal, the historical, the political — as well as the heart-wrenching and the hilarious.
Leipzig, Germany, 1722: seven rival musicians jump at the chance to fill the most sought-after musical post in Europe: organ master at Leipzig. Inspired by actual events, emerging playwright Itamar Moses has crafted a hilarious fugue of schemes and mayhem as each musician deliciously blackmails, bribes, and double-crosses to win the position. “Imagine the Marx Brothers and Tom Stoppard collaborating on a play.” - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Life and Times of Alberta Hunter by Marion J. Caffey. Centered around an inspiring and unbelievable show business comeback, Caffey chronicles Hunter's meteoric rise to fame and her travels across the United States, to Broadway, Europe and beyond where she sang with Fats Waller, Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong and earned the adoration of blues luminaries like Bessie Smith. Then, after a twenty-year absence from the stage, retiring from her second career as a nurse, Hunter, at the age of 82, makes an incredible debut at Greenwich Village's Cookery, and becomes a legend, performing at that space until her death in 1984. Playwright Caffey, who will be on board to direct the OTE production, has not stinted on the music, giving us a dozen and a half musical numbers, many written by Hunter and with reprises of "My Castle's Rockin", "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "I'm Having a Good Time.". Sure to be a jivin' good time for us all!
Wow! This year we have a whole host of spectacular possibilities. They include: TALES FROM HOLLYWOOD, Christopher Hampton’s perceptive chronicle of German expatriates in Hollywood during the Nazi era; the L.A. Premiere of British hit HUMBLE BOY; a vintage American or English comedy ala CHARLEY’S AUNT or THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, or what’s becoming a yearly OTE tradition, an AYCKBOURN COMEDY. Add to this a number of last minute hot projects that might come our way in the course of the year and this slot looms as a spectacular finish to a remarkable Season. |
