Timely, relevant, bittersweet, and scathingly funny, The Prisoner of Second Avenue by the prolific Neil Simon gets the all-star treatment at ACT Theatre, April 29-May 29, with director Warner Shook at the helm and a cast that reads like a Who's Who in Seattle Theatre.
In this comic portrait of urban angst spiked with Simon's trademark zingers, Mel Edison (R. Hamilton Wright) and his wife Edna (Anne Allgood) are a middle-class, middle-aged couple trying to make ends meet in 1970s Manhattan as their world quickly turns upside down and inside out.
Faced with a financial crisis when Mel loses his job in an all-too-familiar economic recession, the couple must also deal with noisy neighbors, a garbage strike, burglars, and Mel's impending nervous breakdown. Just when it seems like things can't get any worse, Mel's brother Harry (John Aylward) and sisters Pauline (Cynthia Lauren Tewes), Pearl (Kimberly King), and Jessie (Julie Briskman) arrive to help, and raise the comedic stakes even higher.
"Not only is it a funny, poignant, and a well-constructed play, The Prisoner of Second Avenue is incredibly relevant for what is going on with America today," said Shook. "Neil Simon is prescient; it's uncanny how he saw into the future. He is brilliant at eliciting pain through humor. It is remarkable, the parallels of what these two people are going through, in their Second Avenue apartment in New York City, and what the world is going through now."
The Prisoner of Second Avenue premiered on Broadway in 1971 with Peter Falk and Lee Grant as the Edisons and Vincent Gardenia as Mel's beleaguered brother, Harry. It ran for almost 800 performances and garnered Tony Awards for both Gardenia and director Mike Nichols, as well as earning a nomination for Best Play. In 1975, The Prisoner of Second Avenue was made into a movie starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft, with a screenplay by Neil Simon. Warner Shook directed the 2009 revival of the play in Massachusetts, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue was most recently restaged in 2010 in London's West End, and featured Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl.
ACT's production of The Prisoner of Second Avenue will be Shook's second time directing this play. The cast includes Anne Allgood, John Aylward, Julie Briskman, Kimberly King, Cynthia Lauren Tewes, and R. Hamilton Wright.
"I knew when Kurt [Beattie] asked me to direct this play at ACT, that I wanted to use an all-Seattle cast," added Shook. "From my years of working in Seattle, I have fallen in love over and over again with the plethora of talent that is here in Seattle - it has the most diversified, marvelously eclectic, and wonderfully talented acting pool of any city I know of. I'm just thrilled that not only do I have an all-local cast, but I sort of have the ‘blue chip' local cast!"
CAST (in alphabetical order):
Anne Allgood Edna Edison
John Aylward Harry Edison
Julie Briskman Jessie
Kimberly King Pearl
Cynthia Lauren Tewes Pauline
R. Hamilton Wright Mel Edison
CREATIVE TEAM
Warner Shook Director
Matthew Smucker Scenic Designer
Deb Trout Costume Designer
Rick Paulsen Lighting Designer
Brendan Patrick Hogan Sound Designer
Jeffrey Hanson Stage Manager
Performance Schedule:
Fri., April 29, 8:00 p.m. (Previews begin)
