Theatre Reviews & Features MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB
By special arrangement with
JON B. PLATT AND SCOTT LANDIS
ANNOUNCE THE BROADWAY PREMIERE OF
VENUS IN FUR
WRITTEN BY DAVID IVES
DIRECTED BY TONY AWARD WINNER WALTER BOBBIE
WITH TONY NOMINEE NINA ARIANDA
IN HER ACCLAIMED PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCES BEGIN THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13; TO OPEN IN NOVEMBER
AT MTC’S SAMUEL J. FRIEDMAN THEATRE (261 WEST 47TH STREET)
"A tasty new comedy by David Ives, directed with laser-sharp precision by Walter Bobbie
featuring a sensational performance by Nina Arianda.
Venus in Fur is 90 minutes of good kinky fun!”
- The New York Times
“The phenomenal Nina Arianda delivers a performance of unconquerable vitality
and seductive energy in this wildly intelligent, exquisite production."
- The New Yorker
Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer), are pleased to announce that Manhattan Theatre Club, by special arrangement with Jon B. Platt and Scott Landis, will produce the Broadway premiere of VENUS IN FUR, the play by David Ives directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie featuring Tony Award nominee Nina Arianda reprising her acclaimed breakthrough performance. VENUS IN FUR will begin performances Thursday, October 13 at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) in a limited engagement. A November opening night for the production will be announced shortly.
Critically acclaimed as “90 minutes of good, kinky, fun!” by The New York Times, VENUS IN FUR makes its Broadway premiere at MTC. Tony Award nominee Nina Arianda in her phenomenal breakout performance as ‘Vanda,’ is a preternaturally talented young actress determined to land the lead in a new play based on the classic erotic novel, Venus in Fur. Her emotionally charged audition for Thomas, the play’s adapter/director, becomes an electrifying game of cat and mouse blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, seduction and power, love and sex. This dazzling new play is written by theatrical mastermind David Ives, and directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie. Casting for the role of Thomas will be announced in the coming weeks.
VENUS IN FUR had its world premiere at Classic Stage Company (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , Artistic Director; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Executive Director) opening on January 26, 2010 where it became a sold out hit and extended twice at their home on East 13th Street. The production received two Drama League nominations including Distinguished Production of a Play, an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, and three Lucille Lortel Award nominations. For the production, Arianda received a Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, the Clive Barnes Award, and Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations.
Playwright David Ives and director Walter Bobbie return to MTC after working together in MTC’s 2003 production of Ives’ POLISH JOKE which featured Bobbie.
When VENUS IN FUR opened last year at Classic Stage Company, it was hailed by critics as a seductive comedy featuring a powerful performance from Arianda. Below is a sampling of the reviews:
“David Ives’ Venus in Fur is a tasty teeter-tottering test of wills, directed with laser-sharp precision by Walter Bobbie and featuring a sensational Nina Arianda.”
- Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
“David Ives’s wildly intelligent and sometimes frightening new play, Venus in Fur is a sexual roundelay about power and powerlessness. Walter Bobbie’s exquisite production features a phenomenal Nina Arianda in a bewitching, spookily accurate performance with unconquerable vitality and seductive energy.”
- Hilton Als, The New Yorker
“Venus in Fur skillfully twists plot and characters in a fast-paced journey into one man's entrapment by a clever, vengeful female.”
- Linda Winer, Newsday
“A delicious two-hander with strengths that include: Walter Bobbie’s breezy direction, John Lee Beatty’s chic set and Ives’s witty, nimble dialogue…not to mention the remarkable Nina Arianda. She has the rare ability to crank up romantic heat, then douse it in a cold comic bath. More audiences should have the pleasure of being dominated by a major talent like hers.”
- David Cote, Time Out New York
“In Venus in Fur, Nina Arianda proves to be an irresistible comic goddess.”
- Joe Dziemianowicz, The Daily News
“David Ives' Venus in Fur is packed with layers and ideas. So packed, in fact, that by the end it's bursting at the seams. It's a smart two-hander directed with skillful velocity by Walter Bobbie.”
- Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New York Post
The creative team for VENUS IN FUR includes John Lee Beatty (scenic design), Anita Yavich (costume design), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting design), andAcme Sound Partners (sound design).
Additional listings information for the production will be announced in the coming weeks. Subscriptions to MTC’s 2011-2012 season are available online atwww.ManhattanTheatreClub.com. Single tickets to VENUS IN FUR will be available beginning Monday, August 1.
In addition to VENUS IN FUR, MTC’s Broadway season will include the world premiere of THE COLUMNIST by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Auburn. The Off-Broadway season at New York City Center will include the world premieres of Zoe Kazan’s WE LIVE HERE and Molly Smith Metzler’sCLOSE UP SPACE, directed by Obie Award winner Leigh Silverman, featuring Tony and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce. MTC will announce two more productions for the 2011-2012 season (one additional production at the Friedman and one additional production at City Center) in the coming weeks.
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, MTC has become one of the country’s most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Over the past three decades, MTC productions have earned a total of 18 Tony Awards and six Pulitzer Prizes, an accomplishment unparalleled by a New York theatrical institution. MTC has a Broadway home at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) and an Off-Broadway theatre at New York City Center – Stage I (131 West 55th Street). Renowned MTC productions include Good People; The Whipping Man; Time Stands Still; The Royal Family; Ruined; The American Plan; Come Back, Little Sheba; Blackbird; Translations; Shining City; Rabbit Hole; Doubt; Proof; The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife; Love! Valour! Compassion!; A Small Family Business; Sylvia; Putting It Together; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; Crimes of the Heart; and Ain’t Misbehavin.’
For more information on MTC, please visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.
BIOGRAPHIES
DAVID IVES (Playwright) is probably best known for his evenings of one-act comedies called All in the Timing and Time Flies. All in the Timing won the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award, ran for two years Off-Broadway, and in the 1995-96 season was the most performed play in the country after Shakespeare productions. His full-length plays include Venus in Fur, which recently enjoyed a vast critical and audience success Off-Broadway; New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza, which won the prestigious Hull-Warriner Award; Is He Dead? (adapted from Mark Twain); White Christmas; Polish Joke; andAncient History.
He has translated Feydeau’s classic farce A Flea in Her Ear, Yazmina Reza’s drama A Spanish Play, Pierre Corneille’s 1643 comedy The Liar (an enormous hit this past spring at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.), and, this season, an adaptation of Moliere’s The Misanthrope which he has re-titled The School for Lies, which also received great critical acclaim at Classic Stage Company. His adaptation of Regnard’s The Heir Apparent will be seen next season at Shakespeare Theatre. Ives is also the author of three young-adult novels: Monsieur Eek, Scrib, and Voss, and he has adapted 30 American musicals for New York City’s beloved Encores! series. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he lives in New York City.
WALTER BOBBIE (Director) won the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards as director of the international hit Chicago which and has become the longest-running revival in Broadway history. Recent directing includes David Ives’s New Jerusalem, Venus in Fur, and The School for Lies, all at Classic Stage Company, Ives’s The Other Woman at EST, as well as Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at Playwrights Horizons, Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette & Boo at the Roundabout, and Terrence McNally’s Golden Age at the Kennedy Center. Broadway credits include White Christmas, High Fidelity, Sweet Charity, Twentieth Century, Footloose, and A Grand Night for Singing. Bobbie is also an actor who appeared in a range of plays and musicals from the original cast of Grease to Shaw’s Getting Married at Circle in the Square, Assassins at Playwrights Horizons, I Love My Wife, Going Up, A History of the American Film,Driving Miss Daisy, Café Crown, and Lincoln Center’s Anything Goes, among others. He received a Drama Desk nomination for his performance as Nicely-Nicely in 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls, and Drama Desk, Outer Critics’ Circle and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for his performance in David Ives’s Polish Joke at Manhattan Theatre Club. Bobbie was Artistic Director for City Center’s acclaimed Encores!, and serves on the Executive Board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
NINA ARIANDA (Vanda), recently nominated for a Tony for her debut Broadway performance as “Billie Dawn” in Born Yesterday, has become one of the most talked about and sought after actors in New York. Nina recently wrapped production on Universal’s Tower Heist playing a flashy role opposite Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. Last year, she debuted Off-Broadway in Venus in Fur with a phenomenal performance garnering attention from the entire NY theater community. Based on her performance she was offered roles in Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris, Tom McCarthy’s film Win Win, and Vera Farmiga’s filmHigher Ground. Nina has been honored with awards from the Drama League; Actor Equity Association Clarence Derwent Award; Theater World Award and Clive Barnes Award. Nina trained at AMDA in their studio program for acting and at the New School for Liberal Arts in New York, Eugene Lang division. She received her MFA from NYU’s Tisch graduate acting program.
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