Manhattan, NY The Directors Co., in association with Pascal Productions, has revealed full casting for the world premiere limited engagement of “A Better Place,” a new work by playwright Wendy Beckett and directed by Evan Bergman.
The cast of “A Better Place” will feature Jessica DiGiovanni, John FitzGibbon, Judith Hawking, Edward James Hyland, Rob Maitner, and Michael Satow.
“A Better Place” begins performances Wednesday, May 4 and opens Sunday, May 15, running six weeks only through Sunday, June 12, at The Duke on 42nd St.
“A Better Place” is a hilarious new play about Manhattanites’ lust for real estate. A male couple becomes transfixed by their neighbors; they can’t tear themselves away from the window. The lifestyle over there is sumptuous, and they have a quirky daughter whose tastes run to exhibitionism. Speculation begins...where did they get all that wealth? And what about the kooky brokers who regularly visit them? Who are these funny people in the glorious glass box? We all want what they have! Could it be they have attained - A Better Place?
The creative team includes David Arsenault (scenic design), Russell Champa (lighting design), Valerie Marcus Ramshur (costume design), and Sam Kunetz (sound design).
A Better Place marks Wendy Beckett’s sixth of ten plays written for production in New York City over a ten-year period. The play also reunites Beckett with director Evan Bergman (Love Therapy) and scenic designer David Arsenault (A Charity Case).
Tickets will now go on sale beginning Tuesday, March 22 and can be purchased through www.dukeon42.org, by calling 646-223-3010, and in person at the Duke on 42nd Street box office (229 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues). Regular box office hours at The Duke on 42nd Street are Tuesday-Friday 4pm-7pm and Saturday 12pm-6pm. On performance days, the box office remains open until showtime. For Sunday performances, the box office opens two hours prior to showtime.
A Better Place will play Tuesdays-Thursdays at 7PM and Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, with matinees on Saturdays at 2PM and Sundays at 3PM. Visit www.dukeon42.org for information on tickets, schedule and pricing.
Biographies:
Jessica Digiovanni (Carol). Theater credits: Of Good Stock (u/s) (MTC - NY Premiere), Melissa’s Choice (Theatre Row - The Lion- World Premiere), Bike America (Ma-Yi Theatre Co. - NY Premiere, Alliance Theatre - World Premiere), Close Up Space (MTC – World Premiere, O’Neill Theatre Center, MTC’s 7@7 reading), Time Stands Still (The Public Theatre of Maine), The Fox on the Fairway (Flat Rock Playhouse), Training Wisteria (Cherry Lane Theatre), Marion Bridge (Director›s Co.), Fool for Love (Under St. Marks) and more. Film & TV: Forever, A Stand Up Guy, The Nearest Human Being, Delusions of Guinevere, A Crime to Remember and more. Jessica can also be seen and heard in multiple commercials nationwide. Training: Fordham University at Lincoln Center, Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT) and LAMDA. www.jessicadigiovanni.com
John Fitzgibbon (Sel). Broadway: The Incomparable Max!. Off-Broadway: Martin Luther on Trial (CPAF at the Pearl Theatre); Macbeth, The Lady’s Not for Burning, Escurial, Antigone, Tempest (CSC); Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Fuga (Public Theatre); Murder in the First (59E59); Duncan Sheik’s Whisper House (NYTW); I Knock at the Door (New Globe Theatre at the Mint); Shanghai Gesture (Julia Miles Theatre); Men of Mah Jongg (QTIP); Cat and the Moon (Open Eye Theatre – Obie nomination); TACT: Salon Series. Regional: Moon for the Misbegotten (Best of Boston Award); Sight Unseen (Caldwell: Carbonell nomination); The Illusion (Shakespeare Theatre, NJ); Bird Sanctuary (Alabama Shakespeare); Ghosts (Buffalo Studio Arena); A Passionate Woman
(Cocoanut Grove); Tamara (Los Angeles); Babbitt (Mark Taper); Souvenir (Hudson Stageworks); Bakersfield Mist (NJ Rep); Poetry of Pizza (Virginia Stage). Film/TV: Exorcist III, Shock Act (best short, Tribeca), Green Lights (starring), “Equal Justice,” “Pearl,” “The Islander,” the original “Hawaii Five-O” (4 episodes); Rockstar Games; soaps; audible books; CD: REFLECTIONS (original piano works).
Judith Hawking (Mary). Broadway: Ivanov, Voices in the Dark. Off-Broadway: Soldier’s Wife (Mint Theater; Drama Desk nominated), Police Boys (Playwrights Horizon, Second Stage), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare in the Park, West Moon Street -Hudson Guild; IT Award nominated), Avow (Director’s Company), Hunting Morels (MCC), Dear Veinna (McGinn-Cazale), Love of the Nightingale (SOHO Rep). Regional: McCarter, Arena (Helen Hayes nominated), New Jersey Rep (Broadway.com nominated), Wilma, Long Wharf, The Old Globe, Cleveland Playhouse, Cincinnati Playhouse, Southern Rep (Top 10 Performance in 2014), Denver Theatre Center, Berkshire Theatre Festival. Canada: Citadel, Pleiades, The Globe. TV& Film: “L&O” (recurring judge), “L&O: SVU,” “L&O:CI,” “Lights Out,” “Eden,” “One Life to Live,” “All My Children,” “The Bronx is Burning.” 10 indie movies. Judithhawking.com
Edward James Hyland (John). Broadway: Machinal, Arcadia, Man Who Had All The Luck, Festen, The Price, Ah! Wilderness. Off-Broadway: Under My Skin, Big Doolie, Juno and the Paycock. Regional: Pittsburgh Public – Othello, Electra, Harry’s Friendly Service, Oedipus the King, The Tempest, Mary Stuart, and Much Ado About Nothing; Hartford Stage Company – Hamlet (CT Critics Award Best Supporting Actor), I Ain’t Ya Uncle; Invisible Man at both The Huntington Theatre Company and Studio Theatre – D.C. (Helen Hayes Award- Best Ensemble); Paper Mill Playhouse – White Christmas; The Ford’s Theatre – The Heavens Are Hung in Black; Arena Stage – Passion Play, Theophilus North; Shakespeare Theatre of D. C. – Macbeth; Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Huntington Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Missouri Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, among others. Film/TV: Woody Allen’s new film (to be released in the fall), Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, True Story, The Happening, The Caller, Asylum Seekers, The Next Big Thing, Cradle Will Rock, “Mr. Robot,” “The Leftovers,” “Political Animals,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Law & Order” franchises, “Gossip Girl,” “Guiding Light,” “One Life To Live,” among others.
Rob Maitner (Les) made his off-Broadway debut at the WPA Theatre in the musical Fairy Tales, for which he won the Bistro Award for Outstanding Performance. He originated the role of Mr. McQueen in the world premiere production of Urinetown. Other New York credits include Asymmetric (59E59), Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Frankenstein Upstairs, Poor Super Man (FringeNYC Best Actor), Fleet Week, A Clockwork Orange, Corpus Christi. Regional credits include Private Lives, The Big Bang, Charley’s Aunt, The Mousetrap, Laughing Wild, Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know and Every Christmas Story Ever Told. Film/TV: The Paper Store (Actium Pictures), FreakMe, I Don’t Believe in That. Rob has been featured in “Sondheim Unplugged” at 54 Below, White Plains Performing Arts Center and NJPAC and has been seen as a vocalist and host at Joe’s Pub, Birdland, The Metropolitan Room and the Laurie Beechman Theater.
Michael Satow (Broker/Concierge). Off-Broadway/NY Stage: Final Analysis (Pershing Square Signature Center), Hot Season (Sheen Center), Raft of the Medusa (Secret Theatre), Look Upon Our Lowliness (HSA Theatre), Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Kraine Theater), Blacken the Bubble (Dixon Place), Betwixt, Between, and BeTWAIN (Crown Theater), Hell For The Company (Bridge Theater), Professional Musician...(ATA), and numerous readings/workshops including NYTW, Joe’s Pub, New Dramatists, and TMTC. Regional Stage: Rumors, Betrayal directed by Evan Bergman (Theatre Workshop of Nantucket), Red (Riverside Theatre), Lend Me A Tenor, Arsenic & Old Lace, Hound of the Baskervilles (Florida Rep), Hannah (Premiere Stages), Shipwrecked! (Capital Rep), Proof (Seacoast Rep), Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet with Jeffrey Donovan (Commonwealth Shakespeare Co.), and the world premieres of Jericho (Florida Studio Theatre), I Heart Kant (CoLab @ George Street Playhouse) and Charlotte the Destroyer (Boston Center For the Arts). Film: Under Jakob’s Ladder with Jeff Stewart, How To Break Up With Your Mother, Middle Ground, One Last Dream of America, and upcoming The Couple. TV/Web: “Manhattan Love Story,” “All My Children” (ABC), “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” (HBO), “Website Story” (College Humor), “PX This.” Graduate of Northeastern University and Maggie Flanigan Studio. Member AEA and SAG-AFTRA. michaelsatow.com, Facebook.com/michaelsatowactor, @michaelsatow.
Wendy Beckett (Playwright) has written more than 25 theatre plays and directed more than 40. She has also written biographies, radio plays for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, books, librettos, articles of academic study and journalism. Her literary mentor was author Lawrence Durrell of The Alexandria Quartet. At 22 she founded a theatre company, ColoursInc, in Adelaide, Australia, where she was the playwright and company director with a staff of 50. On ABC Radio she conducted interviews with some of the best minds of our time – Gore Vidal, Leonard Bernstein and Paul Bowles. Her academic background includes literature, psychology and science, and she has lectured in universities in theatre, creative writing, literature and psychology. She brings all these enthusiasms to her writing. Her books and plays are collected by the Australian National Library in Canberra. For ten years now she has been writing, directing and producing her own work. She attracts and works with eminent Australian artists and has a passion for writing and staging biographical plays. For The Love Of Alma Mahler was performed at the Sydney Opera House. Her other areas of interest in playwriting range from domestic dramas to artistic, psychological and political dramas. Her first play performed in the USA, Anaïs Nin: One Of Her Lives opened at the Beckett Theatre, NYC in 2006.
Evan Bergman (Director). World premieres include the long running New York and Los Angeles production of The Director starring John Shea; Jack Canfora’s Poetic License featuring Geriant Wyn Davis (59E59); A View of the Mountains by Pulitzer and Tony Award nominee Lee Blessing, The M Spot by Michael Tucker, starring Emmy Award winner Jill Ekinberry, Tony Glazer’s Substance of Bliss, The Tangled Skirt by Steve Braunstein (Edgar Award nominee), and Deborah Rennard’s For Worse, all for New Jersey Rep. Gryzk (Ensemble Studio Theater); The Glass House (workshops) with David Strathairn, Hope Davis, Laila Robbins (Connecticut), Geraint Wyn Davies (Barrington Stage), New York premiere with Harris Yulin (Resonance Ensemble, Clurman Theatre). Love Therapy by Wendy Beckett with Alison Frazer (Daryl Roth Theatre); Jack Canfora’s Jericho (NY Times Critic Pick, NJ Rep and 59E59); the musical A Girl Called Dusty (Provincetown); The Last Five Years (NTW); the first all-African American production of American Buffalo featuring Reg E. Cathy and Paul Butler (WHAT).
The Directors Company (Michael Parva, Artistic Producer / Leah Michalos, Managing Director) is an award-winning, not-for-profit theatre company with a mission to develop and produce groundbreaking new plays and musicals. For over twenty-five years, The Directors Company (TDC) has supported new theatre artists and their projects in the development of original theatre works from inception to production. Among the works TDC has developed and produced: Irena’s Vow, by Dan Gordon, starring Tovah Feldshuh, directed by Michael Parva, which received an extended Off-Broadway run before transferring to the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway, where it was honored with an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding New Broadway Play. Other recent Off-Broadway productions include Almost Home by Walter Anderson, On a Stool at the End of the Bar by Robert Callely, The Road to Damascus by Tom Dulack, Jericho and Poetic License (by Jack Canfora, directed by Evan Bergman) and Murder in the First (by Dan Gordon, directed by Michael Parva). Additional major productions developed or produced by TDC: Bat Boy: The Musical, with music by Larson Award-winner Laurence O’Keefe (Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best New Musical); The Milliner by Suzanne Glass; The Passion of Frida Kahlo, featuring Tony Award-winning actress Priscilla Lopez; Kilt by Jonathan Wilson (GLAAD Media Award nomination); AVOW by award-winning playwright Bill C. Davis; Tony Phelan and Joan Rater’s Good Will, which was optioned for a major motion picture; Bad Girls, adapted by award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates from her own short story; The Ballad of Little Jo (Richard Rodgers Award and a Kleban Award for Sarah Schlesinger’s libretto); Drifting Elegant by Stephen Belber (first ever Development Grant awarded by The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays); and Once Upon a Time in New Jersey, a Richard Rodgers and Kleban Lyricist Award-winning musical by Susan DiLallo and Stephen Weiner. www.directorscompany.org.
Founded in 1990, the NEW 42ND STREET is an independent nonprofit organization charged with the continuous cultural revival of 42nd Street between 7th and 8thAvenues. Committed to the transformational power of the arts, the NEW 42ND STREET builds on the foundation of seven historic theaters to make extraordinary performing arts and cultural engagement part of everyone’s life. The NEW 42ND STREET fulfills this purpose by ensuring the ongoing vibrancy of 42nd Street’s historic theaters; maintaining and fully using the NEW 42ND STREET Studios and The Duke on 42nd Street to support performing artists in the creation of their work; and through The New Victory Theater, New York’s premier theater for kids and families.
The Duke on 42nd Street is an intimate black-box performance space in the heart of the theater district, which is available for rental to both nonprofit and commercial organizations. Featuring a gallery along all four walls and a custom, state-of-the-art seating system, The Duke on 42nd Street is a fully-staffed facility that offers full light, sound, and support systems in various configurations. Some performing arts companies have called The Duke on 42nd Street their home, including Primary Stages, Transport Group, Theatre for a New Audience and Lincoln Center Theater LCT3, while other acclaimed companies have performed on its stage, including The Royal Court Theatre, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Armitage Gone! Dance, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Naked Angels, Classical Theater of Harlem and the National Theater of Great Britain.