first priority club News DONOGOO by Jules Romains Begins June 3rd FPC Hotline: (212) 315-0231 Address: 311 W. 43rd St. Suite 307 New York, NY 10036 Box Office: Mon.- Sat Noon-6pm Sun.- Noon-3pm Performances: Tues., Wed., Thurs. 7pm Friday & Saturday 8pm Saturday & Sunday 2pm Special Wednesday Matinees: June 18th & July 9th at 2pm No Performances: June 17th, June 24th, July 8th Full Price: $55/$65 FPC Price: $38.50 (Use Code: FPC)
CheapTix: $27.50 (when available) www.minttheater.org
Join Gus Kaikkonen for Brunch and Discussion June 21st at 12pm at BEA (403 West 43rd Street)
Join Gus Kaikkonen, Translator and Director of DONOGOO by Jules Romains, for a delicious pre-matinee brunch at BEA, where he will discuss the process of translating and adapting Romain’s ambitious and sprawling play for the Mint Theater Company. Brunch and one Premium Ticket is $75 for members of the First-Priority Club. Call 212.315.0231 to reserve your place.
Begins June 3rd!
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Jules
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After Donogoo...
The Fatal Weakness By George Kelly Directed by Jesse Marchese Begins August 19th “Very Nearly Perfect.” George Freedly, N.Y. Morning Telegraph After 28 years of marriage, Ollie Espenshade is still an incurable romantic (her fatal weakness). Perhaps discovering that her husband is a lying cheat will cure her? THE FATAL WEAKNESS, George Kelly’s last produced play, is a smart comedy about romance, marriage and commitment. It opened in New York on November 19, 1946 in a production by the legendary Theatre Guild starring Ina Claire. Although Claire’s triumphant return to Broadway after a five year absence garnered much of the press attention, Kelly’s play turned more than a few critics’ heads. “One of Kelly’s best. It reveals keen understanding of character— an evening of genuine quality.” wrote Ward Morehouse in The New York Sun. Richard Watts Jr. of the New York Post called THE FATAL WEAKNESS “so fresh in its observations, three-dimensional in its characters and human in its humor that it emerges as the first important new comedy of the season.” The play went
on to be hailed “Best New Comedy” by George Jean Nathan’s Honor List in Theatre Book of the Year, 1946-1947. But Kelly’s comedy was too dramatic for some critics. The Times’ Brooks Atkinson could not reconcile the play’s sober themes with its shrewd sense of humor. “He has remarkable facility for writing comic lines, [but] he has not decided whether he is writing capricious comedy or psychological drama,” Atkinson complained—accusing him of “playing both sides of the street.” Meanwhile, The Nation’s Joseph Wood Krutch recognized that this duality was the play’s greatest strength. “Neither the action nor the author’s commentary ever falls into any of the familiar grooves one is perpetually expecting it to find. Mr. Kelly rejects all the ready-made patterns which would immediately render his play comfortably classifiable and thus defeats all the easy expectations.” John Chapman of the New York Daily News agreed with Krutch, calling THE FATAL WEAKNESS, “an evening of intelligent, smooth fun.
A word from Jonathan about what’s coming up in August: I first read THE FATAL WEAKNESS more than 15 years ago and I have to admit, for whatever reason, it went right over my head. So last year, during the run of PHILIP GOES FORTH, when we were looking for another Kelly play to present as part of our “Further Reading” series, I didn’t even consider WEAKNESS. But after running through a handful of other options, I decided to give it another chance. Reading it again was an embarrassing revelation to me. I was completely enchanted and excited to share it with our audience. The intention of our Further Reading series is simply to provide our audience with an opportunity to experience more of a writer’s work—but every once in a while something undeniably magical happens and the result is that we end up producing the play—and that’s exactly what happened last October. Although we haven’t yet even begun performances for DONOGOO, I wanted to give First-Priority Club Members a jump on planning for what’s next, before we invite the general public to begin ordering tickets in June. THE FATAL WEAKNESS by George Kelly Begins August 19th FPC Hotline: (212) 315-0231 Address: 311 W. 43rd St. Suite 307 New York, NY 10036 Box Office: Mon.- Sat Noon-6pm Sun.- Noon-3pm Performances: Tues., Wed., Thurs. 7pm Friday & Saturday 8pm Saturday & Sunday 2pm Wednesday Matinee: 9/10 at 2pm No Performances: 9/9 & 9/16 Full Price: $55/$65 FPC Price: $38.50 (Use Code: FPC)
CheapTix: $27.50 (when available) www.minttheater.org
It is a kind of fun that goes deeper than laughter, for any exposure of human frailty is not without its sobering side.” In 1976, THE FATAL WEAKNESS was revived as a vehicle for Academy-Award winner Eva Marie Saint, who said the role of Mrs. Espenshade was one of her all-time favorites. The play was filmed for PBS’ Hollywood Television Theater that year, and featured an interview with
Princess Grace Kelly, who discussed her uncle’s work. In a critical biography of playwright George Kelly, author Foster Hirsch calls THE FATAL WEAKNESS “a lovely and gracious swan song…a delight for those attuned to the Kelly pace and tone. This play is the most urbane and gracious achievement of a singular playwright.”
Announcing EnrichMINT Events for The Fatal Weakness Saturday, August 23, after the matinee: Kristin Celello Author of Making Marriage Work: A History of Marriage and Divorce in the Twentieth-Century United States and currently co-editing a volume titled Domestic Tensions, National Anxieties: Global Perspectives on Marriage Crisis. Saturday, August 30, after the matinee: Maya Cantu Maya is Mint Theater’s Dramaturgical Advisor and the author of the George Kelly biography that appears in our program. She will discuss the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright George Kelly. Sunday, August 31, after the matinee: Ken Bloom Author of Broadway: An Encyclopedic Guide to the History, People, and Places of Times Square Mr. Bloom will discuss George Kelly and the commercial American theatre of the 1940s—the decade in which THE FATAL WEAKNESS was first produced. Sunday, September 7, after the matinee: John M. Clum Author of The Drama of Marriage: Gay Playwrights/Straight Unions from Oscar Wilde to the Present— which discusses the historic tradition of gay dramatists writing about heterosexual relationships for the commercial theater and includes a chapter on George Kelly and THE FATAL WEAKNESS.
Meet the Cast Below: Victoria Mack in MILNE AT THE MINT. She’s also appeared in FAR AND WIDE and A LITTLE JOURNEY at the Mint. Photo by Richard Termine
Right: Patricia Kilgarriff previously appeared at the Mint in MARY BROOME. Photo by Carol Rosegg
Left: For the Mint, Kristin Griffith has appeared in MARY BROOME (pictured), MILNE AT THE MINT and THE CHARITY THAT BEGAN AT HOME. Photo by Carol Rosegg
Above: Cliff Bemis previously appeared at the Mint in Philip Goes Forth, also by George Kelly. Photo by Rahav Segev
THE FATAL WEAKNESS also features Cynthia Darlow and Sean Patrick Hopkins
Thank you to everyone who attended the
Mint Theater CompanyBenefit
WITH APOLOGIES TO THE AUTHOR April 28, 2014 Below from left: Bob Donnalley enjoys the beautiful view from the Library terrace with guests Joan Weingarten and Jen Donnalley. Kathryn Swintek and Dorothy Silverstein. Jann Leeming and Ciro Gamboni.
Top from left: Julia Coffey. Sharon Glassman, Darlene Heidtke and Virginia Nahas. Jonathan Bank and Katie Firth.
Clockwise from Left: LONDON WALL cast members Matthew Gumley, Stephen Plunkett, Julia Coffey, Katie Gibson, Alex Trow, Christopher Sears, Jonathan Hogan, Elise Kibler and Laurie Kennedy
Photos by Steven Tucker
Below from left: Beulah Robinson and Helen Tucker. Enid Nemy and Elaine TaylorGordon.
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Dear Friends, As summer approaches, things are really starting to heat up at the Mint. Donogoo is in its last weeks of rehearsal and we’re knee deep in plans for our next production. As is the case every summer at the Mint, we seem to have something going on non-stop from May through October. This issue of the First-Priority Newsletter has complete information about our next production, The Fatal Weakness by George Kelly. Once Donogoo performances begin, that show will be on sale to the general public, but I wanted to get you the news first, of course. If you’re not ready to pick your dates for August or September just yet, don’t worry—we’ll make sure you get great seats whenever you’re ready to call the FPC Hotline (212-315-0231). We’re planning to follow this up with a brief survey, which we’ll send out via email. I’d like to know if you enjoy receiving our newsletters and if there’s anything we can do to make them more useful or enjoyable. My six-year old son recently told me that he wanted to donate the contents of his piggybank to the Mint ($15.73) to help make us even better. I asked him if he had an idea of what I might spend the money on, and he suggested an audience survey—and yes, I’m very proud of him! Yours sincerely,
Begins June 3rd FPC Hotline: (212) 315-0231 Address: 311 W. 43rd St. Suite 307 New York, NY 10036 Box Office: Mon.- Sat Noon-6pm Sun.- Noon-3pm Performances: Tues., Wed., Thurs. 7pm Friday & Saturday 8pm Saturday & Sunday 2pm Special Wednesday Matinees: June 18th & July 9th at 2pm No Performances: June 17th, June 24th, July 8th Full Price: $55/$65 FPC Price: $38.50 (Use Code: FPC)
first priority club News www.minttheater.org (212) 315-0231 311 West 43rd Street, Suite # 307 New York, NY 10036
Jonathan
CheapTix: $27.50 (when available) www.minttheater.org