• 04 x January 15th: Hugh and Claire Visit “Speed the Plow” on Broadway

Casting has been announced for The 24 Hour Company Production of The 24 Hour Plays on Broadways, which will be presented at the American Airlines Theatre Nov. 17.

The eighth annual event, presented by Montblanc, will benefit Urban Arts Partnership, an organization that brings arts education into New York City classrooms.

Among those scheduled to take part in the one-night-only event include actors Aasif Mandvi, Elizabeth Berkley, David Cross, Hugh Dancy, Rachel Dratch, Michael Ealy, Mamie Gummer, Peter Hermann, Justin Long, Anthony Mackie, Julianna Marguiles, Diane Neal, Cynthia Nixon, Rosie Perez, Kim Raver, Horatio Sans, Annabella Sciorra, Liev Schreiber, Brittany Snow, Julia Stiles, Maura Tierney and Alicia Witt; playwrights Terrence McNally, Beaux Willimon and Ben Karlin; and directors Peter Ellenstein, Thomas Kail and Josie Rourke.

The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, according to press notes, “attracts some of entertainment’s biggest names as they join forces to participate in a rite of extreme live performance: writing, directing, and performing six original short plays, all in just 24 hours.”

The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, according to press notes, “attracts some of entertainment’s biggest names as they join forces to participate in a rite of extreme live performance: writing, directing, and performing six original short plays, all in just 24 hours.”

The creative process will begin at “10 PM on Sunday, November 16th – the night before the show – when a group of six writers, six directors, 24 actors, one musical guest, and a production staff gather at the American Airlines Theater. After casts and crews have been briefed, each writer is tasked with composing a ten-minute play by 7 AM the following morning, when the directors return to read and select their piece. The casts will meet for the first time at 8 AM and, over the next 12 hours the plays are rehearsed and produced for a live presentation. At 8:00 PM, ink barely dry, the six new plays – interspersed with six musical acts – will be performed for a live audience.”

The American Airlines Theatre is located at 227 West 42nd Street. For tickets visit www.SmartTix.com or call (212) 868-4444.

Source: Playbill

“It asks the general question, ‘Surely there must be a better way to conduct human affairs,’” Grindley told Playbill.com, but “it’s not making a strident message.”

The play, based on Sheriff’s own experiences in the First World War, is about a group of British soldiers living together in a cramped trench in France while fighting the last great German offensive in March 1918.

Hugh Dancy, who plays the lead role of Stanhope, said the play does relate to the current conflict in some specific ways.

In the late stages of the war, when the play takes place, he said, “people didn’t really know any more what they were fighting for, they just knew they had to keep fighting. Their loyalty was to the guy next to them, not to a bigger ideal, really.”

“And I think that’s increasingly true of the conflict we’re in now,” he adds. “Not everybody would agree with me, but the outline of why people are there and what we’re trying to achieve is becoming increasingly blurred.”

In separate interviews at the preview, the lead actors of Journey’s End — which begins previews Feb. 8 and opens Feb 22 at the Belasco Theatre — spoke to Playbill.com about their personal connections to the play.

Jefferson Mays, who plays Mason, the cook, has waited his whole career to appear in Journey’s End.

“I’m not one of those actors who has a laundry list of roles that I want to do or plays that I wanted to do,” he said. “This is the one exception.”

“I dare say, it’s my favorite play,” he adds. “I think it made me want to become an actor.”

As a kid, Mays was a bit of an anglophile, and played with his father’s World War I toy soldiers. He then saw Journey’s End in a production at the Long Wharf Theater in 1978.

“I was reduced to adolescent sobs at the end of it, and came back and saw it a second time with my father,” he said. “It deeply, deeply affected me. For Christmas that year I got a first edition of it, and I’ve read it every year ever since. I still don’t know my lines, for some reason.”

Mays is also happy to be out of his I Am My Own Wife dress, which he wore for four years. He performed regionally, on Broadway and internationally in the one-man play about a transvestite, and won a Tony Award for it.

“It’s a welcome change,” he said. “I’m so glad to be playing with other children.”

The three-time Tony Award winner Boyd Gaines, who plays Lieutenant Osborne, also has a past connection to the play. As a young actor, while taking a design class, he had to design a set and costumes for a play and chose Journey’s End, which he had read in high school.

“I just remember that it was very brown,” he said of his set. “And I’m sure one of the reasons I chose [the play] was because it was a unit set.”

The play is Gaines’ third consecutive all-male cast — after Twelve Angry Men and Bach at Leipzig. Gaines said that in each of the shows, the dressing room chatter matches the play itself.

During Twelve Angry Men, a play about the legal system set in New York City, Gaines said, “There was so much talk about the city and how it works and the different types of personalities you encounter, the legal system.” With Bach, which was about music, religion and philosophy in the 18th century, the discussion was more “What are you reading?”

And at Journey’s End, so far? “We’re talking about the war,” he said.

Stark Sands, who plays the 18-year-old Raleigh, has appeared on screen in works such as “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Six Feet Under,” but Journey’s End is his first professional theatre gig.

In the play, his character happens to be placed into the same company as the protagonist, Stanhope, who was his older friend and idol when he was a boy, but who has been away in battle for three years.

“I can’t tell you how many parallels there are with my life,” he said. “I just moved to a new place” — to New York temporarily from L.A., where he’s lived since college — “I’m starting on a journey that’s I’ve never done before, this is the biggest thing I’ve ever done, I’m working with people I look up to and all I want to do is make them proud.”

Source: Playbill

Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff (Belasco Theatre, opens Feb. 22)
The recent high-profile success of London imports such as “The History Boys” and “Democracy” has meant new opportunities for shows once considered too serious for the Great White Way. Based on Sheriff¡’s experiences in World War I, “Journey’s End” is not only a beautifully written drama about the horrors of war and the value and fragility of friendship, but a moving example of what can accomplished on a stage. Starring the truly dishy (and talented) Hugh Dancy, this promises to be a great night of theater.

Source: Newsweek

The actor and former Burberry model is taking a break from Hollywood for Broadway, to star in Journey’s End – about British infantrymen in a First World War trench.

It is a sweet success for British director David Grindley: the play has been a surprise hit in the West End, and now the producers behind the Broadway staging of Spamalot and The History Boys, Bob Boyett and Bill Haber, are stumping up $2m for a New York run.

Grindley auditioned Dancy, then bought him a pint in the Northumberland Arms on Goodge Street, where he twisted the actor’s arm into playing hard-drinking young Cpt Dennis Stanhope.

Sir Laurence Olivier was the first to take the role – albeit for two performances. Dancy is down for four months.

Source: The Independent

OH! And by the way, before I forget, if you were a fan of Hugh as the Earl of Essex (unlike the Golden Globes, cough), join the fanlisting would you? You don’t need to have a website, just read the rules and fill out the form.

• 01 x Journey’s End: Stage Photos & Misc

Prices range from $96.95 (orch) to $36.25 (balcony) and the show dates are from February 8th to July 1st (!! yay). I’ve already gotten my tickets for the show! And I’m totally psyched. I promise to bring you lots of site exclusives.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on December 30th.

Directed by David Grindley, who helmed a successful West End revival of the show in 2004 that played two separate engagements in London, Journey’s End will star Tony Award winners Boyd Gaines and Jefferson Mays, along with film star Hugh Dancy in the central role of Captain Stanhope.

Rising British star Dancy, who will be making his Broadway debut in Journey’s End, is best known in America for playing Prince Char in the film Ella Enchanted. He has also been seen in the films Black Hawk Down, King Arthur and Basic Instinct 2. Notable TV credits include the series Cold Feet, Dangerfield and Relic Hunter as well as the TV movies Madame Bovary, David Copperfield and Elizabeth I.

Gaines, who plays second-in-command Lieutenant “Uncle” Osborne, is the winner of three Tony Awards, for The Heidi Chronicles, She Loves Me and Contact. He was last seen on Broadway in the successful Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Twelve Angry Men as Juror #8. Other Broadway credits include The Show Off, Company, Cabaret and Anything Goes.

Mays, who is featured as Private Mason, the cook, won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award and a Theatre World Award in 2004 for his solo performance in Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife, which he also performanced in London’s West End. Off-Broadway credits include Moe’s Lucky Seven, Quills, Culture of Desire and Lydia Breeze, Parts I & II.

Performances of Journey’s End are schedulued to begin on February 8, 2007.

Source: Broadway.com

Telecharge.com says that the revival will play the Belasco Theatre with an official opening scheduled for Feb. 22, 2007. David Grindley, who helmed a 75th anniversary production in London’s West End in early 2004, will repeat those duties on this side of the Atlantic. The company will also feature John Ahlin, Nick Berg Barnes, John Behlmann, Justin Blanchard, Kieran Campion, John Curless and Richard Poe.

Boyett Ostar Productions will produce the Broadway mounting.

No official announcement has been made about the Broadway production of Journey’s End.

No official announcement has been made about the Broadway production of Journey’s End.

The New York Times’ Ben Brantley gave the British revival a solid review on Feb. 16, 2004, calling the production “superb,” and writing that the play “feels as fresh and forlorn as the evening news. Directed with an open-eyed, steady gaze by David Grindley, and performed by a perfectly assembled band of actors, this fine production is cause for both rejoicing and despair. Like the National Theater’s revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra, it finds enduring life in a play you think would be irretrievably buried in dust.”

It was Journey’s End, one of the first plays about World War I to score a commercial hit, that made R. C. Sheriff’s name. Based on Sheriff’s own experiences in the Great War, the play is set in a trench in St. Quentin, France, as a group of British officers await their day of reckoning. The young Captain Stanhope tries to galvanize his men as they prepare to raid the enemy across No Man’s Land. Meanwhile, his company is joined by his old schoolfriend Raleigh, who finds his one-time hero much changed.

The play premiered on Broadway in 1929, with Jack Hawkins in the cast. It ran 485 performances. It was revived for a short Broadway run in 1939.

The London cast included David Haig, Phil Cornwell, Paul Bradley, Christian Coulson, Ben Meyjes, Max Berendt, Alex Grimwood, John R. Mahoney, Rupert Wickham, Guy Williams and Geoffrey Streatfield.

Tickets are not yet on sale for the Broadway production.

Source: Playbill