Broadway Bound Lombardi for the Mahaiwe
Great Barrington Previews July 22-28
By: Bob Fowler - May 20, 2010
Producers Tony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser announced that LOMBARDI, a new American play from Academy Award-winning playwright Eric Simonson, directed by Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail, will preview at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Mass. July 22-28, before moving to the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway this fall (previews begin September 23, opening night is October 21). Starring Dan Lauria and Judith Light, LOMBARDI is based on the best-selling biography When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss. The producers will donate a portion of the proceeds from the world premiere performance ofLOMBARDI on July 22 to Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation to fund much-needed new equipment for the Weight Room and Music Lab at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Mass.
Dan Lauria, star of the beloved Emmy Award-winning TV series “The Wonder Years,” will take on the title role of Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi, one of America’s most inspirational and mercurial personalities. Like Lombardi, Mr. Lauria is a former football coach, and he began acting while attending college on a football scholarship. Judith Light, star of the TV series comedies “Ugly Betty” and “Who's the Boss?,” will play Vince Lombardi’s wife, Marie Lombardi. The cast will also feature Keith Nobbs as Michael McCormick, Bill Dawes as Paul Hornung, Robert Christopher Riley as Dave Robinson and Chris Sullivan as Jim Taylor.
Joining Ponturo and Kirmser as a special producing partner is the National Football League, marking the organization’s first foray on Broadway. The NFL has authorized use of its logos and NFL Films’ footage and music. The league will also help promote and market the play.
Tracy Perlman, the NFL’s Vice President of Entertainment Marketing and Promotions, said, “Football and Broadway are both iconic American forms of entertainment, and the NFL is proud to bring these two unique and passionate audiences together under one roof. Lombardi’s charisma and coaching style were legendary – and intensely theatrical. Football fans will learn more about the dramatic private life of the sports hero for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named, and Broadway audiences will be captivated by the story of a family chasing the American dream.”
Producer Fran Kirmser added, “We are so thrilled to be presenting our world premiere at the Mahaiwe. We already felt a connection to the area because of my history of working at Williamstown Theatre Festival and cast members’ appearances there and at the Mahaiwe, so we knew firsthand the advantages the community offers to developing work. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to perform in front of a savvy audience that will give our creative team valuable input. We are also delighted to give back to the community by making our first performance in the Berkshires a benefit for sports and arts in the local public high school.”
Playwright Eric Simonson is an ensemble member of the renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company, a post he maintains while working as a writer and director for film, television, theatre and opera. Most recently he completed a documentary for HBO called Studs Terkel: Listening to America. His documentary A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin won the 2006 Oscar for Documentary Short. That film also received a nomination from the International Documentary Association (IDA) for Distinguished Achievement. He was also nominated for an Oscar for his documentary On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom in 2001. That film won the IDA Distinguished Achievement Award, and received an Emmy nomination after it aired on HBO/Cinemax. Other films include Hamlet (co- directed with Campbell Scott) for Hallmark Entertainment, and an independent feature, Topa Topa Bluffs. In addition to these directing credits he has also written and developed three pilots for HBO: Five Points, Homeland and Us.
Mr. Simonson’s directing and writing credits in theatre include work at Steppenwolf Theatre, The Huntington Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Kansas City Rep, The Kennedy Center, Pasadena Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, Arizona theatre, San Jose Rep and Court Theatre in Chicago. His work at Steppenwolf includes premieres of his plays Carter’s Way, Honest and Fake; the critically acclaimed and nationallyproduced Nomathemba (co-written with Ntozake Shange and Joseph Shabalala), and The Song of Jacob Zulu, which was invited to the Perth International Arts Festival, ran on Broadway, and received six Tony nominations including Best Director.
His several plays include published works Bang the Drum Slowly and Work Song (co- written with Jeffrey Hatcher) and the adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’sSlaughterhouse-Five, all of which have been produced at theatres across the country. Opera credits include the North American premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale at Minnesota Opera, and, recently, the world Premiere of The Grapes of Wrath (composed by Ricky Ian Gordon), for Minnesota Opera, Utah Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and Opera Pacific. In October 2005, Mr. Simonson was presented with the Princess Grace Foundation’s Statuette Award for Sustained Artistic Achievement.
David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and the author of five critically acclaimed bestselling books about history, sports, and politics. Among the most honored writers/journalists of his generation, Maraniss won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his reportage on Bill Clinton, was part of a Post team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and has been a Pulitzer finalist twice more for his journalism and once in history for his Vietnam work, They Marched into Sunlight. His other major books include First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton; Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics that Stirred the World; Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero; and When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. The Lombardi biography, winner of the Frankfurt International Book Prize, was hailed by Sports Illustrated as “maybe the best sports biography ever published.” It was a New York Times bestseller for more than five months and remains immensely popular ten years after its first publication. In January 2010, Simon and Schuster will publish a collection of his works titled Into the Story: A Writer’s Journey through Life, Politics, Sports, and Loss. Maraniss is also at work on a biography of Barack Obama that is to be published in 2011. He lives in Washington, D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, Linda. They have two grown children and two little redheaded granddaughters.
Director Thomas Kail was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for his direction of In the Heights. Off B'way: In the Heights (Callaway Award, Drama Desk nom., Outer Critics nom.) New York City Center: The Wiz. Lincoln Center Theater: Broke-ology (Mitzi Newhouse). Williamstown: Broke-ology (World Premiere). National Tour: In the Heights. Co-creator and director of the hip-hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme, which played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, US Comedy Arts Festival, Montreal Comedy Festival and Melbourne Comedy Festival. Artistic director and co-founder of Back House Productions. TV: Directed “Oprah Winfrey's 2010 Primetime Oscar Special” for ABC; directed pilot episode of “Storymakers” for AMC; Co-Music director and consulting producer of PBS show “The Electric Company.” Recipient of the 2008 Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center. Graduate of Wesleyan University, Conn.
One of the most influential figures in sports and entertainment in the last 20 years, Tony Ponturo is the head of Ponturo Management Group LLC, the New York-based sports and entertainment management, investment and marketing company. Fran Kirmser, a fixture in the arts community who produces both non-profit and commercial projects, met Ponturo while collaborating on the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Hair.
Dan Lauria (Vince Lombardi) is known to millions as the gruff Dad on the Emmy Award-winning ABC series “The Wonder Years,” and he has played more than seventy roles on television, including “CSI,” “The Ghost Whisperer,” “ER,” “The Bronx Is Burning,” “From Earth to the Moon” (miniseries), and “Law and Order: SVU.” In addition to his recent starring role in The Spirit, Dan’s score of film credits includes the blockbuster Independence Day, both Stakeout films (starring Richard Dreyfuss), Big Momma’s House 2 with Martin Lawrence and the cult hit Alien Trespass. Dan is a familiar face on the theater scene, having performed, written or directed over fifty professional productions. His New York area appearances include Ears on a Beatle, The WinningStreak, Inspecting Carol, and most recently the title role in A Stone Carver. Regionally he has appeared with Jack Klugman in Arthur Miller’s The Price, and with Charles Durning in Men In Suits, as well as Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies and The Value Of Names by Jeffrey Sweet. Dan continues to appear—most often with friend Wendie Malick—in benefit performances of The Guys, writer Anne Nelson’s tribute to the brave firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11. For ten years Dan served as the Artistic Director of The Playwright’s Kitchen Ensemble (PKE) of Los Angeles. PKE produced over 450 public readings of new plays with the finest actors in the business, in order to promote the development of the new American playwright.
Judith Light (Marie Lombardi) was last seen on the New York stage in Wit. She began her theatrical career in productions including A Doll's House andHerzl (Broadway); Measure for Measure (NY Shakespeare Festival); A Streetcar Named Desire (Toronto); and The Diary of Anne Frank (Los Angeles). She is perhaps best known for her roles on the long-running TV series "Who's the Boss?" and most recently on “Ugly Betty” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” She has received two Emmys, two Soapy awards and a Soap Opera Hall of Fame Award for her role as Karen Wolek on “One Life to Live." Judith has also appeared in numerous films for TV, as well as the ABC series "Phenom."
Keith Nobbs (Michael McCormick) made his Broadway debut in The Lion in Winter starring Laurence Fishburne and Stockard Channing directed by Michael Mayer. Other New York stage credits include Stupid Kids (dir. by Mayer); Hope is a Thing with Feathers and Free to be…You and Me (both Drama Dept); Four and Fuddy Meers (MTC); Dublin Carol and the world premiere of David Mamet’s Romance (Atlantic). He is a member of The Drama Department and the Vineyard Theatre. TV includes HBO’s “The Pacific;” “The Black Donnellys;” “The Sopranos;” and “Law & Order.” Film credits include Double Whammy, Phone Booth, 25th Hour, and the independent films I Will Avenge You, Iago!, and Premium.
Bill Dawes (Paul Hornung ) made his Broadway debut in Sex and Longing. His number TV credits include “Law & Order;” “Oz;” “Sex and the City;” “Damages;” and “All My Children.” As a standup comic he’s a regular at The Laugh Factory in Hollywood and has performed in Iraq for the troops.
Robert Christopher Riley (Dave Robinson) made his Broadway debut in the 2008 revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad, directed by Debbie Allen. Other theatrical credits include Fences (Hartford Stage) and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Baltimore Center Stage). Television credits: “Medium,” “Nurse Jackie,” “Royal Pains,” “Last of the Ninth,” “Victorious,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Mr. Riley holds a MFA from Ohio University.
Chris Sullivan (Jim Taylor) will mark his Broadway debut. Originally from Sacramento, CA, he joins Lombardi by way of Chicago where he moved six years ago while touring with Rob Becker’s Defending the Caveman. He earned his degree in Theater Arts from Loyola Marymount University in L.A. and also studied at The Oxford School of Drama in Oxford, England. After making his Chicago debut in 2008 at The Goodman Theater in The Ballad of Emmett Till he has spent the last two years performing at almost every major theater in the city. Other notable Chicago performances include The Hairy Ape at The Goodman Theater and The Mystery of Irma Vep at The Court Theater.
The creative team is David Korins (Set), Paul Tazewell (Costumes), Howell Binkley (Lighting), Acme Sound Partners/Nevin Steinberg (Sound) andZach Borovay (Projections).
TICKET PRICING AND PLAYING SCHEDULE:
Tickets ($30 to $65) are on sale now online at www.mahaiwe.org
, by phone at 413.528.0100 or in person at the Mahaiwe Box Office (14 Castle Street in Great Barrington, Mass.). Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. The production is recommended for audience members age 10 and up.
The show will play on the following schedule July 22-28:
8PM Performances: Thursday July 22, Friday July 23, Saturday July 24;?
3PM Performances: Saturday July 24, Sunday July 25;?
7PM Performances: Tuesday July 27, Wednesday July 28