Rosemary Harris coming to George St.

Big news from New Brunswick, where a change has been made to the mainstage season for good reasons. The press release follows below.

Award-Winning Actress ROSEMARY HARRIS
Comes to George Street Playhouse in
East Coast Premiere of Oscar and the Pink Lady
Jan 15 - Feb 10

Tony Award Winner (And Seven-Time Nominee) Known to Spiderman Fans as
Aunt May, Will Be Directed by the Acclaimed Frank Dunlop, Founder of England’s Young Vic Theatre

Oscar and the Pink Lady replaces Donald Marguilies’ Sight Unseen, Which Will be Rescheduled for 2008-09 Season


New Brunswick – George Street Playhouse announced today that Academy Award nominee, Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winner Rosemary Harris will star in the East Coast premiere of a new play by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt titled Oscar and the Pink Lady. Returning to the Playhouse to helm the play will be the acclaimed Frank Dunlop, whose work was last seen in New Brunswick in Kressman Taylor’s Address Unknown. Oscar and the Pink Lady replaces the previously-announced Sight Unseen by Donald Marguilies. This one-woman tour de force will play in New Brunswick from January 15 through February 10, 2008, with opening night set for Friday, January 18.

“I am thrilled and honored to be welcoming Rosemary Harris to George Street Playhouse,” said Artistic Director David Saint, “it is amazing to me to have this great lady of the theatre on our stage. I am doubly thrilled to welcome back Frank Dunlop, the founder of England’s Young Vic Company as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s theatre company. He magnificently directed Address Unknown a few seasons ago, and we are so pleased to be able to work with him again. I am equally committed to producing Sight Unseen, as I believe it to be an amazing play, but when this opportunity, with this caliber of talent presented itself, I simply couldn’t say no. Sight Unseen will be produced next season.”

From internationally-acclaimed writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt comes a beautiful and surprisingly funny story of a young patient and his uplifting relationship with a kindly volunteer “Pink Lady,” whose daily visits provide him with inspiration and hope. Starring the celebrated Ms. Harris, Oscar and the Pink Lady is sensitive, heartbreaking, amusing, and ultimately life-affirming.

Originally produced at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, the production team consists of many of the veterans of that production, including scenic designer Michael Vaughn Sims, costume designer Jane Greenwood and sound designer Lindsay Jones.

Individual tickets priced $28 - $62, as well as flexible admission and dinner/theatre packages are available by contacting the George Street Playhouse Box Office at 732-246-7717, or shop online at www.GSPonline,org. Groups of ten or more are entitled to a discounted rate; for further information call the GSP Group Sales Office at 732-846-2895, ext. 134. George Street Playhouse is located in the heart of New Brunswick’s Dining and Entertainment District, and is easily reached by public transportation.

Tickets issued for the previously announced Sight Unseen will be honored for Oscar and the Pink Lady.

Internationally-renowned actress Rosemary Harris starred in the original Broadway productions of Old Times, A Streetcar Named Desire, the Royal Family, Heartbreak House, Pack of Lies, Hay Fever, A Delicate Balance, Waiting in the Wings, An Inspector Calls and The Lion in Winter, for which she won a Tony Award. She spent six years with Association of Producing Artists (which her husband Ellis Rabb founded), appearing in works by Shakespeare, Shaw, Sheridan, Chekhov, Ibsen, Wilde, Pirandello and Kaufman and Hart at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway. At the Royal National Theatre she appeared in Women of Troy, The Petition, Hamlet and Uncle Vanya. She has appeared in many films including Spiderman 1,2 and 3, Sunshine, and Tom & Viv (Academy Award nomination). Her numerous television credits include Notorious Woman (Emmy Award), Holocaust (Golden Globe), To the Lighthouse, and Death of a Salesman. She remains one of the most beloved and esteemed performers of stage and screen.

Within a decade, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt has become one of the most read and acted French-language authors in the world. Schmitt first made a name for himself in the theatre with The Visitor, a play that posits a meeting between Freud and – possibly – God. Further successes quickly followed, including Enigma Variations, The Libertine, Between Worlds, Partners in Crime, My Gospels and Sentimental Tectonics. His plays have won several Molières and the French Academy’s Grand Prix du Théâtre. More recently, the four novellas that make up his Cycle de l’Invisible, a series of tales dealing with childhood and spirituality have met with huge success both on stage and in the bookshops. Other works include When I Was a Work of Art, a whimsical and contemporary version of the Faustus myth, and My Life With Mozart, a compilation of the composer’s private correspondence. A keen music lover, Schmitt has also translated into French The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni from the original Italian.

Acclaimed director Frank Dunlop returns to George Street Playhouse after directing Kressmann Taylor’s Address Unknown during the 2004-05 season. He is best known for his direction of the Broadway productions of Camelot and Scapino. He was the founder and director England’s Young Vic Theatre, and has served as resident director at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre, associate director at England’s National Theatre as well as a director at the Piccolo Theatre in Manchester, England, the Nottingham Playhouse and the Edinburgh International Festival. He also founded the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Theatre Company in 1978. He holds honorary degrees from the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts, Heriot-Watt University and the Shakespeare Institute, and is an honorary fellow at the University of London.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director David Saint, George Street Playhouse has become a nationally recognized theatre, presenting an acclaimed mainstage season while providing an artistic home for established and emerging theatre artists. Managing Director Todd Schmidt was appointed in October 2007. Founded in 1974, the Playhouse has been well represented by numerous productions both on and off-Broadway – recent productions include Anne Meara’s Down the Garden Paths, the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Drama League nominated production of The Spitfire Grill and the recent Broadway hit and Tony® and Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof by David Auburn, which was developed at GSP during the 1999 Next Stage Series of new plays. In addition to its mainstage season, GSP’s Touring Theatre features five issue-oriented productions that tours to more than 250 schools in the tri-state area, and are seen by more than 75,000 students annually.

George Street Playhouse programming is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. George Street Playhouse gratefully acknowledges the Media Sponsorship of the 2007-2008 Season by our Community Arts Partner, New York Public Radio WNYC 93.9 FM/ 820 AM and Greater Media Newspapers.