Singing Forest
For those of you in the New York area, Randy is going to be on stage again:
Full casting has been announced for The Public Theater's New York premiere of Craig Lucas' The Singing Forest, to run April 7-May 17, with an opening on April 27. Mark Wing-Davey will direct.
As previously announced, Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis will star in this play about three generations of a family whose lives are intertwined despite the secrets that have torn them apart.
The cast will also include Mark Blum, Rob Campbell, Louis Cancelmi, Pierre Epstein, Jonathan Groff, Randy Harrison, Deborah Offner, and Susan Pourfar.
The creative team will include John McDermott (scenic design), Gabriel Berry (costume design), Japhy Weideman (lighting design), and John Gromada (original music and sound design).
For more information, visit www.publictheater.org.
He plays two characters (as do other members of the cast):
Laszlo Fickes (age 23) who looks younger, expensive haircut, prominent tattoo around his neck, which reads “poison free,” gay, hates his father, dates much older men, drinks nothing but wheatgrass, non-pasteurized goat milk, goji, and acai juice, eats nothing but raw food, fancies himself a kind of lay-analyst because he has dated two shrinks, when he matures he will be a wonderful person, for many people his age, he is the one person they’d want to go on vacation with, in the past doubles as GERHARDT ZEITZLER, a Gestapo agent, completely in control.
Just a couple of pieces of info: The two nights of post-play discussions are already sold out. The auditions for the play were held in January over a period of two weeks. The title of play pertains to the Nazi treatment of homosexuals during WWII.
If anyone is interested, here's the description of characters:
MALE (50s) - DR. OLIVER PFAFF. Loe’s son, a psychoanalyst, driven, self-justifying, easily whipped into a lather, competitive, vengeful, always looking for enemies, immensely charming when needed, attracted to younger men who lie to him and generally misbehave, thinks he is going to save them but this never quite works out, in the past doubles as MARTIN RIEMEN, father to Young Loe and Young Walter, proper, fatherly, with strong boundaries;
FEMALE (50s) - BERTHA AHMAD. Née Rieman, Loe’s daughter, twin sister of Oliver, mother of Jules, every choice she has ever made has blown up in her face, as a result, all decisions cause her extreme anxiety, she ran away from her mother at a young age and married an immensely wealthy Arab sheik, whom she accidentally immolated during a bondage and discipline marital episode, lives in the Hotel Pierre in an apartment bequeathed to her, yet she eats in soup kitchens to economize, in the past she is also ANNA FREUD, youngest child of Sigmund Freud, caring, contained, supremely disciplined to the point of the complete sublimation of her individual needs, closeted, decisive, strong boundaries, always knows the right thing to do, even if she denies herself the luxury of doing it;
MALE (25 to 30) - GRAY KORANKYI. Unemployed actor, doesn’t audition well, fate assigned him his character when he was named Gray, suffering from past trauma but doesn’t know it, resisting going into therapy, is in spiritual hiding, likes to disappear into the characters he plays, feels uncomfortable, uncertain in his own skin, thoroughly heterosexual, in the past doubles as YOUNG WALTER RIEMAN, a Viennese analysand and analyst in training, disciple of Freud, self-knowing, confident in his own powers, composed, the product of privilege, gay;
FEMALE (mid-20s to 30s) - BETH ADLER. Gray’s girlfriend, hides her light under a bushel, well-educated, analytical, lost, her heart is not in her relationship with Gray, works as a barista in Starbucks, in the past doubles as YOUNG LOE RIEMAN, Walter’s sister, deep-seeking, earnest, brilliant, on fire, magnificent, the “before” to Loe’s “after”
MALE (48 to 55) - DR. SHAR UNGER. Psychotherapist, professional victim, admirer of young men, unsure of his own power as a therapist, lives in thrall to the past-Freud’s and Freud’s intimates, not his own, in the past doubles as DR. MAX SCHUR, Freud’s personal physician and a member of the “inner circle,” trusted and trustworthy, taking care of Freud as a kind of father substitute
MALE (80s) - LOE RIEMAN. Shattered face, survivor of the 20th-century European destruction, now living in Staten Island, brilliant psychoanalyst, disciple and patient of Freud, has lost her license and is unable to practice therapy, which causes her many agonies, terminally ill with cancer, funny, her younger self is played by the actress playing Beth;
MALE (late 20s to early 30s) - JULES AHMAD. 30, Loe’s grandson, Bertha’s son, reclusive celebrity, unimaginably wealthy, has virtually no idea how people behave in relation to one another, social interactions are a mystery to him, has no intimates, gay, very attractive, crazy rich, estranged from his mother-Orestes-like, wants to re-connect with his roots, but is completely disregarding his Arab half and has next to no idea what the other half might be, lives in the shadows, hooded, skulking about, is the sexiest person anyone has ever seen, and the gossip magazines are obsessed with him, in the past also doubles as SIMON HIRSCH, the devoted, fulfilled lover of Walter Rieman, supremely poised, appropriate, in possession of excellent boundaries, but also quite reserved and self-effacing, Jewish, cultured, upper-class, articulate, graceful, humble;
MALE (early 80s) - BILL. 82, always does the next right thing, the only person in the story with any meaningful happiness, in the past doubles as SIGMUND FREUD, inventor of psychoanalysis, father, philosopher, raconteur, and VOICE OF UNSEEN THERAPIST
Note: Each character in the present also has, in the 1930s sequences, an alter-ego (in each case a mirror-image, someone with the opposing traits-a kind of shadow self).
Full casting has been announced for The Public Theater's New York premiere of Craig Lucas' The Singing Forest, to run April 7-May 17, with an opening on April 27. Mark Wing-Davey will direct.
As previously announced, Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis will star in this play about three generations of a family whose lives are intertwined despite the secrets that have torn them apart.
The cast will also include Mark Blum, Rob Campbell, Louis Cancelmi, Pierre Epstein, Jonathan Groff, Randy Harrison, Deborah Offner, and Susan Pourfar.
The creative team will include John McDermott (scenic design), Gabriel Berry (costume design), Japhy Weideman (lighting design), and John Gromada (original music and sound design).
For more information, visit www.publictheater.org.
He plays two characters (as do other members of the cast):
Laszlo Fickes (age 23) who looks younger, expensive haircut, prominent tattoo around his neck, which reads “poison free,” gay, hates his father, dates much older men, drinks nothing but wheatgrass, non-pasteurized goat milk, goji, and acai juice, eats nothing but raw food, fancies himself a kind of lay-analyst because he has dated two shrinks, when he matures he will be a wonderful person, for many people his age, he is the one person they’d want to go on vacation with, in the past doubles as GERHARDT ZEITZLER, a Gestapo agent, completely in control.
Just a couple of pieces of info: The two nights of post-play discussions are already sold out. The auditions for the play were held in January over a period of two weeks. The title of play pertains to the Nazi treatment of homosexuals during WWII.
If anyone is interested, here's the description of characters:
MALE (50s) - DR. OLIVER PFAFF. Loe’s son, a psychoanalyst, driven, self-justifying, easily whipped into a lather, competitive, vengeful, always looking for enemies, immensely charming when needed, attracted to younger men who lie to him and generally misbehave, thinks he is going to save them but this never quite works out, in the past doubles as MARTIN RIEMEN, father to Young Loe and Young Walter, proper, fatherly, with strong boundaries;
FEMALE (50s) - BERTHA AHMAD. Née Rieman, Loe’s daughter, twin sister of Oliver, mother of Jules, every choice she has ever made has blown up in her face, as a result, all decisions cause her extreme anxiety, she ran away from her mother at a young age and married an immensely wealthy Arab sheik, whom she accidentally immolated during a bondage and discipline marital episode, lives in the Hotel Pierre in an apartment bequeathed to her, yet she eats in soup kitchens to economize, in the past she is also ANNA FREUD, youngest child of Sigmund Freud, caring, contained, supremely disciplined to the point of the complete sublimation of her individual needs, closeted, decisive, strong boundaries, always knows the right thing to do, even if she denies herself the luxury of doing it;
MALE (25 to 30) - GRAY KORANKYI. Unemployed actor, doesn’t audition well, fate assigned him his character when he was named Gray, suffering from past trauma but doesn’t know it, resisting going into therapy, is in spiritual hiding, likes to disappear into the characters he plays, feels uncomfortable, uncertain in his own skin, thoroughly heterosexual, in the past doubles as YOUNG WALTER RIEMAN, a Viennese analysand and analyst in training, disciple of Freud, self-knowing, confident in his own powers, composed, the product of privilege, gay;
FEMALE (mid-20s to 30s) - BETH ADLER. Gray’s girlfriend, hides her light under a bushel, well-educated, analytical, lost, her heart is not in her relationship with Gray, works as a barista in Starbucks, in the past doubles as YOUNG LOE RIEMAN, Walter’s sister, deep-seeking, earnest, brilliant, on fire, magnificent, the “before” to Loe’s “after”
MALE (48 to 55) - DR. SHAR UNGER. Psychotherapist, professional victim, admirer of young men, unsure of his own power as a therapist, lives in thrall to the past-Freud’s and Freud’s intimates, not his own, in the past doubles as DR. MAX SCHUR, Freud’s personal physician and a member of the “inner circle,” trusted and trustworthy, taking care of Freud as a kind of father substitute
MALE (80s) - LOE RIEMAN. Shattered face, survivor of the 20th-century European destruction, now living in Staten Island, brilliant psychoanalyst, disciple and patient of Freud, has lost her license and is unable to practice therapy, which causes her many agonies, terminally ill with cancer, funny, her younger self is played by the actress playing Beth;
MALE (late 20s to early 30s) - JULES AHMAD. 30, Loe’s grandson, Bertha’s son, reclusive celebrity, unimaginably wealthy, has virtually no idea how people behave in relation to one another, social interactions are a mystery to him, has no intimates, gay, very attractive, crazy rich, estranged from his mother-Orestes-like, wants to re-connect with his roots, but is completely disregarding his Arab half and has next to no idea what the other half might be, lives in the shadows, hooded, skulking about, is the sexiest person anyone has ever seen, and the gossip magazines are obsessed with him, in the past also doubles as SIMON HIRSCH, the devoted, fulfilled lover of Walter Rieman, supremely poised, appropriate, in possession of excellent boundaries, but also quite reserved and self-effacing, Jewish, cultured, upper-class, articulate, graceful, humble;
MALE (early 80s) - BILL. 82, always does the next right thing, the only person in the story with any meaningful happiness, in the past doubles as SIGMUND FREUD, inventor of psychoanalysis, father, philosopher, raconteur, and VOICE OF UNSEEN THERAPIST
Note: Each character in the present also has, in the 1930s sequences, an alter-ego (in each case a mirror-image, someone with the opposing traits-a kind of shadow self).