David Mamet, Rebecca Hall Join 2016-17 Season at Atlantic Theater Compan

David Mamet, Rebecca Hall Join 2016-17 Season at Atlantic Theater Company

David Mamet’s first play following the bad-buzz magnet “China Doll” has been added to the 2016-17 season at the Atlantic Theater Company, the Off Broadway troupe that Mamet co-founded. Also on the docket are actress Rebecca Hall (“The BFG”) as well as the postponed world premiere of musical “The Band’s Visit,” among other projects.

Details are scarce on the latest from Mamet, whose Broadway outing “China Doll” stirred up controversy and crummy word of mouth earlier this season but still turned a profit. The untitled new play, to be directed by Atlantic artistic director Neil Pepe, is described as written “specifically for Atlantic’s ensemble,” and will run February through April on the theater’s mainstage, with exact dates to be set.

Hall, who appeared in “Machinal” on Broadway in 2014, will star in “Animal,” Clare Lizzimore’s play about a woman who starts having visions. Gaye Taylor Upchurch, who previously staged “Harper Regan” at the Atlantic, directs the show on the company’s smaller Stage 2 space, in a run set for May-June.

Meanwhile, “The Band’s Visit,” based on the 2007 Israeli film and originally set to be directed by Harold Prince, will now be helmed by David Cromer (“Our Town”) this fall (November-January). Book writer Itamar Moses and songwriter David Yazbek (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” “The Full Monty”) adapt the movie about an Egyptian police band stranded overnight in a remote Israeli village.

Other titles on tap at the Atlantic include Paola Lazaro’s “Tell Hector I Miss Him,” a world premiere set in the La Perla slums of San Juan (January-February on Stage 2) and “Marie and Rosetta,” a play with music by George Brant, whose play “Grounded” starred Anne Hathaway at the Public Theater last year. His new one is about influential singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (August-October on the mainstage).

The theater’s programming for young audiences includes the New York bow of “1001 Nights: A Love Story about Loving Stories,” with songs by “Frozen” co-writer Robert Lopez (“The Book of Mormon,” “Avenue Q”) and a book by Lopez and Adam Koplan, who also directs.

One mainstage production and one kids offering remain to be announced.


Source: http://variety.com/2016/legit/news/atlantic-theater-company-2016-17-season-1201781028/