The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway.
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Guest: David Auburn, Playwright of “Summer, 1976”
David Auburn (Playwright): Plays include The Adventures of Augie March (based on the Saul Bellow novel, Court Theatre, Chicago 2019), Lost Lake (MTC 2014), The Columnist (MTC/Broadway 2011), and Proof (MTC; 2001 Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, New York Drama Critics Circle Award). Film work includes The Girl in the Park (writer/director), Georgetown, and The Lake House, as well as current television projects for HBO and Amblin Television. He is artistic associate at the Berkshire Theatre Group, where he has directed The Skin of Our Teeth, The Petrified Forest, Anna Christie, and A Delicate Balance, among other plays. Other directing credits include Long Day’s Journey into Night (Court, Chicago) and the Off-Broadway world premiere of Michael Weller’s Side Effects (MCC). A former Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in New York City. He/him.
ON BROADWAY at the
SAMUEL J. FRIEDMAN THEATRE
Now in performances through June 10.
Four-time Emmy Award winner & Academy Award nominee Laura Linney (My Name Is Lucy Barton, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes) and Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (The Assembled Parties) return to Broadway in a new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and fellow MTC alum David Auburn (Proof, The Columnist). This deeply moving, insightful piece is about connection, memories, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives. Over one fateful summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Diana (Linney), a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom, and Alice (Hecht), a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. As the Bicentennial is celebrated across the country, these two young women in Ohio navigate motherhood, ambition, and intimacy, and help each other discover their own independence. Directing is Tony winner Daniel Sullivan (Proof, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes).
Summer, 1976 was commissioned by MTC through the Bank of America New Play Program. Production support is provided by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation and the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.
The creative team for Summer, 1976 includes John Lee Beatty (scenic design), Linda Cho (costume design), Japhy Weideman (lighting design), Jill B.C. DuBoff (sound design), Hana S. Kim (projection design), Greg Pliska (original music), David Caparelliotis & Kelly Gillespie (casting), James FitzSimmons (production stage manager), and Katie Ailinger (stage manager).
For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the episode name.
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Broadway & Me
Jan Simpson is a theater journalist who writes the blog Broadway& Me and hosts the BroadwayRadio podcasts Stagecraft and All The Drama. She has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror.
