Production #1
Title: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Producers: Front Row Productions, Stephen C. Byrd, and Alia M. Jones
Performance Dates: Feb. 12, 2008-June 22, 2008
Key Artists: Terrence Howard, James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Debbie Allen
Picture Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/cat200803
This production is unconventional due to its casting of all black actors. There have been all-black casts of many shows but this production is in my opinion one of the biggest deals because it is a play by Tennessee Williams. Most of the previous productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof have featured an all-white cast with the exception of the two servants that Tennessee Williams writes specifically as black.
Production #2
Title: After the Fall
Producers: The Roundabout Theatre Company
Performance Dates: Jul. 29, 2004-Sept. 12, 2004
Key Artists: Peter Krause, Carla Gugino, Jessica Hecht
Picture link: http://www.broadwayworld.com/columnpic/1045fall.jpg
This production of After the Fall is to me unconventional not due to its script treatment or its direction. The setting of this production was an airport terminal which is not how the setting is described in the original script by Arthur Miller. The original setting of After the Fall was inside the main character Quentin's mind. From reading reviews of this production, it seems that the airport set was quite elaborate that even included a working escalator; I can only imagine how much this would have changed the straight-forwardness of Miller's script.
Production #3
Title: Richard III
Producers: Nicu's Spoon Theater
Performance Dates: July 20, 2007-July 29, 2007
Key Artists: Andrew Hutcheson, Henry Holden, Heidi Lauren Duke
Picture Link: http://spoontheater.org/history/2007-tales-of-the-lost-formicans/
I actually got a chance to see this production in the summer of 2007 in New York City. What is unconventional about this production of Shakespeare's Richard III is that there were two actors who played the titular character. One actor was actually disabled who had to use crutches to navigate around the small stage while the second actor playing Richard stood for the entire production in a corner far upstage left. To add on to the uniqueness of this production, the actor who stood upstage left performed all of the dialogue scenes of the play while reading from the script while the actor on stage just mouthed the words and performed the physical actions. The actor who was actually on stage only spoke when every Richard spoke a soliloquy; it was an interesting effect.
Production #4
Title: A Seagull in the Hamptons
Producers: McCarter Theatre Center
Performance Dates: May 2, 2008- June 8, 2008
Key Artists: Emily Mann, Larry Pine, Stark Sands, Maria Tucci
Picture Link: http://www.mccarter.org/media/photogallery.aspx?page_id=15&album=Seagull%20in%20the%20Hamptons
What is interesting about this production of The Seagull is that the director and adapter Emily Mann decided to set Chekhov's play in the upper class New York State are The Hamptons. I thought it was interesting to find that Mann used most of Chekhov's original words with a little tweaking of her own; she also translated the production. Because the McCarter Theatre Center is a very premiere, upscale American regional theatre, I believe that this production would only be appealing to certain social groups. However, it is very unconventional and original to update a Chekhov piece like The Seagull.
