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The Axelrod Performing Arts Center, in
collaboration with Grind Arts Company, presents a bold reimagining of
Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Sunday in the Park With
George WHEN: March 8-24. Official opening night is Saturday, March 9 at 8 PM.
WHERE: Axelrod Performing
Arts Center, 100 Grant Avenue, Deal
For tickets and further information,
please visit: www.AxelrodArtsCenter.com.
Sunday in the Park With
George stars Graham Phillips (13:
The Musical on Broadway; TV's "The Good Wife,"
"Riverdale"), in his first return to the stages of the
Tri-state in 16 years, as George, and Talia Suskauer (Elphaba in
Wicked on Broadway) as Dot.
Eamon Foley brings a bold, new,
dance-forward reimagining of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
masterpiece to the stage. Inspired by the Georges
Seurat painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande
Jatte,” Sunday in the Park With
George is one of the most acclaimed
musicals of our time; it won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize and garnered 10
Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical. As George
completes his most ambitious work, the artist struggles to create
meaningful art and meaningful connections with those he's closest,
including his lover, Dot. Misunderstood by the artistic community,
George has the capacity to engage with the subjects on his canvas, but
not with the people in his life. A century later, Seurat's great
grandson – also an artist named George – is lost and in search of
direction. He finds his path forward, illuminated by the color and
light of the past.
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“My dance-forward vision of Sunday In The Park With George began
twenty years ago,” says Eamon Foley. “I was nine-year-old, appearing as
a newsboy in the Broadway revival of Gypsy with
Bernadette Peters. All of us child actors would watch the PBS recording
of Sunday on VHS during the second act, while waiting
for our curtain call. Then, I’d listen to the cast album on my commutes
to and from the theatre, and the score really inspired me, as it has so
many others. To me it sounded like color swirling around you, and I
believed that this complex and beloved musical had untapped potential
to dance. Bringing the colors to life as dancers en pointe seemed
like the perfect way to bring us closer to George, and honor what I
first found so thrilling about Sondheim's rich score.” Later,
Foley would further explore this concept as a student at Princeton
University, making a dance film set to Sunday’s “Color and
Light.” A labor of love – created with the meager resources
of a student artist – he experimented with this dance-forward approach
to the material. “Now, with this production,” Foley says, “I bring this
concept to fruition with some of my oldest friends and collaborators;
I've admired Graham Phillips’ talent since we appeared on Broadway
together in 13: The Musical, and I have
been admiring Talia Suskauer since we attended theatre sleepaway camp
together. It's thrilling to bring this vision to life on stage
...finishing the hat, at last."
Phillips and Suskauer share the stage
with Joy Hermalyn (Fiddler on the Roof, Caroline or Change
on Broadway) as the Old Lady, Bernard Dotson (Paradise Square
on Broadway) as Jules, Kevin Arnold, Giuliana Augello, Anthony
Cataldo, Katie Davis, Bridget Gooley, James C.
Harris, Isabel Lagana, Ella Mangano, Dylan
Randazzo, Allie Seibold and six dancers from the Axelrod
Contemporary Ballet Theater Company (AXCBT); Alyssa Harris, Giana
Carroll, Lindsay Jorgensen, Olivia Miranda, Sarah
Takash and Gillian Worek.
The production features Music Direction
by Jacob Yates (Only Gold, Hadestown, Rock of Ages), who
will conduct an 11-piece orchestra; Scenic Design by Ryan Howell
(Teenage Dick, I Am My Own Wife); Costume Design by DW
Withrow (Broadway Bares, The Rockae, The Apple Tree);
Projection Design by Brad Peterson (Cats, Larry David’s Fish
in the Dark), Lighting Design by Paul Miller (Legally
Blonde, Amazing Grace), and additional Wig Design by J. Jared
Janas (Wicked, Prayer for the French Republic, & Juliet). Dave
Zuckerman is the Executive Producer, and Robin Foley, Nancy
Karpf, and Katie Birenboim are Co-Producers.
“With Sondheim’s most personal and
soaring score,” Axelrod’s Executive Artistic Director, Andrew DePrisco
summarizes, “Sunday remains the sentimental favorite of every Sondheim
fan and yet it is rarely revived due to its auspicious demands. We
are thrilled to be partnering with Grind Arts to mount Eamon’s brilliant
conceptualization of this musical, and we are certain that audiences
will be awestruck with this staging that incorporates both movement and
light.”
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Tickets, ranging from $32 - $65,
are available on online at www.AxelrodArtsCenter.com.
The performance schedule is as follows:
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Sunday
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Monday
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Tuesday
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Wednesday
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Thursday
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Friday
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Saturday
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MARCH 8
7PM
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MARCH 9
2PM & 8PM
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MARCH 10
3PM
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MARCH 11
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MARCH 12
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MARCH 13
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MARCH 14
2PM
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MARCH 15
7PM
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MARCH 16
2PM & 8PM
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MARCH 17
3PM
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MARCH 18
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MARCH 19
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MARCH 20
2PM
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MARCH 21
2PM & 7PM
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MARCH 22
7PM
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MARCH 23
2PM & 8PM
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MARCH 24
3PM
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GRAHAM PHILLIPS (George)
began his career as a soloist at the New York City and Metropolitan
Operas before starring on Broadway in Jason Robert Brown’s 13: The
Musical, where he first met Eamon Foley. Graham was a series
regular on “The Good Wife” before writing and directing his first
feature, The Bygone, a neowestern thriller, with his brother. Their
second feature, Rumble Through the Dark, based on the novel The
Fighter by Michael Farris Smith, was released last year by
Lionsgate. He has performed in a variety of roles on film and
television, including leads in the films Goats, Evan Almighty,
XOXO, Staten Island Summer and Blockers. He also has
appeared in “Riverdale” and “Atypical” and starred in ABC’s “The Little
Mermaid Live”. Recent stage credits include Nick in Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Geffen Theater and George in
Pasadena Playhouse’s production of Sunday in the Park With George.
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TALIA SUSKAUER (Dot)
recently completed her tenure as Elphaba in Wicked on
Broadway, and prior to that, the show’s 2nd National Tour. Other NY
credits: Be More Chill (Broadway), Be More Chill
(Signature Theater). Regional: Louise in Gypsy (Goodspeed Opera
House), Little Women (Jo), The Secret Garden (Lily).
Film/TV: "FBI: Most Wanted," 31 Candles, to be
released next year. Talia has performed at Carnegie Hall, and performs
solo shows around the city at venues like 54 Below and Chelsea Table
and Stage, and at theaters around the country. Talia holds a BFA in
Musical Theatre from Penn State University.
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EAMON FOLEY (Director
/ Choreographer) is the Artistic Director of Grind Arts
Company. Broadway credits include Gypsy, Assassins, How the
Grinch Stole Christmas, 13! The Musical, and Everyday
Rapture. Eamon choreographed David Cromer’s Next to
Normal at Writer’s Theater, and Michael Arden’s productions
of Annie at the Hollywood Bowl, Merrily We
Roll Along at The Wallis Annenberg (NAACP Award
Nomination), Guys and Dolls at the Imperial Theater in
Tokyo, and Alien/Nation at Williamstown Theater
Festival among others. Other choreography credits
include His Story, directed by Jeff Calhoun, Ragtime at
the Nissay Theater in Tokyo, and Next to Normal directed
by Alan Paul, which premiered at Roundhouse Theater this winter and can
be seen again this summer at Barrington Stage Company. | |
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