Ari Brand as he appeared in The Diary of Anne Frank at Westport Country Playhouse. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
The Long Wharf Theatre has the whole three-person cast set for its season-ending production of My Name is Asher Lev. I posted a few weeks ago ago the welcome news that Mark Nelson is on board as the multi-purpose character known in Aaron Posner as “Man.”
Mark Nelson as he appeared in Gordon Edelstein's production of A Doll's House at Long Wharf. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
There’s also “Woman,” to be played by Melissa Miller, who was in the reading of Sinan Unel’s Pathetique at Hartford Stage recently; Hartford Stage artistic director Darko Tresnjak directed Miller in the national tour of The Merchant of Venice starring Murray Abraham produced by Theatre for a New Audience. Seth Bockley, who scripted the new musical February House which just had its world premiere at Long Wharf, directed Miller in Jason Grote’s Civilization at Clubbed Thumb in New York.
Melissa Miller.
As for who’s playing the title role: His name is Ari Brand, who played Peter Van Daan last year in The Diary of Anne Frank at Westport Country Playhouse. That theater’s artistic director, Mark Lamos, directed Brand in the world premiere of A.R. Gurney’s Black Tie at Primary Stages this past January.
He’s also in this Target commercial:
Asher Lev’s being directed by Gordon Edelstein, who chose the project after the announced Long Wharf premiere of a stage version of Sophie’s Choice was deemed unready for the May mainstage slot. I talked with Edelstein a couple of months ago about the issue, and he said, “When I realized we were in trouble, I didn’t want to announce [the cancellation] without a replacement. I had to find a play that fulfilled both the cconomic and the the thematic criteria.” That is, Edelstein would have to draw the same audience and balance the overall season in the same way. A different classic 20th century Jewish novel about the consequences of difficult decisions regarding faith and culture seemed ideal. Especially since Posner’s script been getting swell reviews and a growing number of regional theater production in the couple of years it had been around.
Edelstein has not seen any of those previous productions (which include one at the Williamstown Theatre Festival). He told me he had been rereading the novel and has his own ideas for the staging. The set design will be by Long Wharf veteran and Yale alum Eugene Lee (Hughie, Krapp’s Last Tape, Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver and Coming Home, etc. etc.). Ilona Somogyi is doing the costumes, Chris Akerlind the lights, prolific stage composer John Gromada (an associate artist at Hartford Stage, where he scored many of Michael Wilson’s greatest triumphs) is the sound designer and Bonnie Brady’s the stage manager.