THEATER
NEWS
Taye Diggs and Anthony Mackie to do A Soldier's Play on NYC theater
stage.
June 17, 2005
Source:
Playbill.com
Taye Diggs, Anthony Mackie, Teagle Bougere and Steven Pasquale
will appear in the upcoming Second Stage Theatre Off-Broadway
season opener, Charles Fuller's A Soldier’s Play.
Jo Bonney (Living Out, Fat Pig) directs the production slated
to start performances Sept. 20 at the midtown Manhattan stage.
In the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama set in 1944, a black
military lawyer (Diggs) who is sent from Washington to investigate
the murder of a black Master Sergeant. In his search, he must
overcome uncooperative officers including the victim's white
commander (Pasquale) and fearful troops in this tale of deceit
and prejudice.
The work originally played Off-Broadway in a Negro Ensemble
Company staging that featured Denzel Washington and Samuel L.
Jackson. Fuller later adapted the play for film in 1984 under
the direction of Norman Jewison. Mackie recently appeared a Boston
reading of the work opposite Ruben Santiago-Hudson at the Wang
Center for the Performing Arts.
The all-male ensemble cast for the new Off-Broadway revival
will include Teagle Bougere (A Raisin in the Sun) as Private
Tony Small s, Taye Diggs (Rent, "Kevin Hill") as Captain
Richard Davenport, Michael Genet ("She Hate Me," "The
25th Hour") as Private James Wilkie, Anthony Mackie (McReele, "The
Manchurian Candidate") as Private First Class Melvin Peterson,
Dorian Missick ("Freedomland," "Shaft") as
Private Louis Henson and Steven Pasquale (Fat Pig, "Rescue
Me") as Captain Charles Taylor. More casting for the remaining
roles is yet to be announced.
OBIE Award-winning director Bonney staged Lisa Loomer's Living
Out for Second Stage Theatre. Her other directing credits include
Neil LaBute's Fat Pig, Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July, Jose Rivera's
References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, Eric Bogosian's Humpty
Dumpty, suburbia, Funhouse, Pounding Nails in the Floor with
My Forehead, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll
among many others.
The Second Stage 2005-06 season will continue with the world
premiere of Douglas Carter Beane's The Little Dog Laughed directed
by Scott Ellis, the world premiere by Paul Weitz (Privilege,
Roulette) and the New York premiere of Theresa Rebeck's The Water’s
Edge starring Kate Burton and Tony Goldwyn under the direction
of Will Frears.
For subscription and ticket information for visit the Second
Stage box office, 307 West 43rd Street (just off Eighth Ave.),
call (212) 246-4422 or toll-free (800) 766-6048 or visit www.SecondStageTheatre.com.
|