FringeNYC 2010 Season Will Platinum, a revival of the 1978 Bruce Vilanch-William Holt-Gary William Friedman musical

Playbill
FringeNYC 2010 Season Will Feature Nearly 200 Theatre Companies
By Thomas Peter
June 5, 2010

The 14th Annual New York International Fringe Festival has announced its 2010 season lineup, which will feature 197 international theatre companies in Lower Manhattan and nationally.

Many famous personalities will be skewered in several of the Festival plays. MacChin: The Lamentable Tragedy of Jay Leno, written and directed by Zachary Stewart, will cast the benighted late-night television host in a spin on Shakespeare’s infamous “Scottish play.” Eric Zambrano’s fantasy piece Marilyn Monroe: Wouldn’t It Be Tomorrow has the movie goddess and one-time husband Joe DiMaggio pursuing imagined lovers.

Just in Time: The Judy Holliday Story, written and directed by Bob Sloan, will feature “appearances” by Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, and other theatre and film stars in the life of Holliday, the comic singing actress of Bells Are Ringing, Born Yesterday, and many films. Writer Patricia Loughrey and composer Thomas Hodges examine the late gay politician and activist Harvey Milk in Dear Harvey.

The widely diverse array of artistic offerings will include shows inspired by the Muslim experience, Shakespeare and LGBT issues, as well as plenty of musicals and other unique performance pieces. The festival will run August 13-29.

Emma Barash, Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz and Steve Wargo will offer Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical, a re-envisioning of the popular film from the dinosaurs’ perspectives, directed by Pailet. Platinum, a revival of the 1978 Bruce Vilanch-William Holt-Gary William Friedman musical about a former screen star who makes a comeback with a rock band, will also appear in the festival, directed by Ben West and choreographed by Rommy Sandhu.

Divya Palat’s A Personal War: Stories of the Mumbai Terror Attacks (which Palat will also direct) will theatricalize the stories of survivors from the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Norwiegan-Muslim comedienne Shabana Rehman will talk about her immigration experiences in For Kingdom and Fatherland.

Matt Salderelli’s Getting Even with Shakespeare, directed by Laura Konsin, will pit five of Shakespeare’s great tragic heroes against each other in a bar. Julius Caesar: The Death of a Dictator, from the Gangbusters Theatre Company, will reimagine Orson Welles’ staging of Shakespeare’s political drama with Metallica music.

Singapore’s transsexual activist Leona Lo will tell her story in Ah Kua Show, directed by Richard Chua. Steven Fales (Confessions of a Mormon Boy) will discuss the gay Mormon experience again in Missionary Position, based on his work as a missionary in Portugal. Historic homophobic incidents will be explored in Stan Richardson’s Veritas (directed by Ryan J. Davis), about the Harvard “Secret Court” anti-gay witch hunt; and The Twentieth-Century Way (written by Tom Jacobson and directed by Michael Michetti).

For the complete list of productions, more information on them and to order tickets (beginning July 23), visit fringenyc.org. Tickets may also be ordered at (866) 468-7619.