Viewing page 26 of 37

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[advertisement]]
Playbill's Ultimate backstage Tour of Broadway!

[[image - a photograph of the book, At This Theatre]] 

"an invaluable book for theatre lovers." -DONNA MCKECHNIE

By Louis Botto with Editor Robert Viagas of Playbill Preface by Tony Award-winning actor Brian Stokes Mitchell

A fascinating star-studded, fact-filled theatre-by-theatre history of Broadway- with stories of the shows, the players, and the magic that takes place inside the buildings of the Great White Way.

• Authoritative, comprehensive, inspired by Louis Botto's long-running popular Playbill column "at This Theatre."

• Over 550 illustrations, in color and black and white- including production photographs, posters and rare and classic Playbill covers.

• A treasure-trove of information for all theatre buffs- and the Perfect Holiday Gift Book for theatre enthusiasts everywhere!

AVAILABLE FROM THESE FINE BOOKSELLERS

Drama Book Shop
backstage Memories
Broadway Cares Catalog
Broadway New York
Theatre Circle
Colony Music
Shakespeare & Company
Barbara's Bookstores
Lenox Hill Bookstore
Metropolitan Opera Gift Shop
Bennet Book Nook
Gotham Bookmart
Applause Books
Book Revue
Barnes & Noble
Borders
amazon.com
OR CONTACT US AT: (800) 524-4425 OR VISIT: WWW.PLAYBILL.COM
[[/advertisement]]


[[image - photograph by Craig Schwartz]]
[[caption]] Siân Phillips and Peter Friedman in a scene from My Old Lady, directed by David Esbjornson [[/caption]]


AN OLD SOUL by Harry Haun

Although he has had great success interpreting the work of many of today's most gifted young playwrights, director David Esbjornson exhibits a singular affinity for the Old Masters

For some time now, old has been the operative word for David Esbjornson, who, despite a sudden shock of gray hair recently, is a relative youth of 48.

He's director du jour for two of our most prestigious and prodigious playwrights- Arthur Miller, 86, and Edward Albee, 74, have entrusted their two latest plays to him to do - and now he's helming My Old Lady. a new play by Israel Horovitz, an autumn chicken of 63.

The inestimable Siân Phillips heads the three-character cast at the Promenade, playin a Parisian grande dame of 94, who, when threatened with eviction by the son (Peter Friedman) of her late American lover, turns the tables on him by citing an ancient French custom that permits her-and her daughter (Jan Maxwell)- occupancy until she decides to die. Till then, he must pay their expenses- plus rent for himself if he expects to stay there.

This unusual premise was prompted by the obituary of Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived her last decades under such an arrangement and indeed outlived her landlord a good 30 years, eventually dying Aug. 4, 1997, at the age of 122, the oldest person on this planet.

"I had no knowledge about this practice when I started to work on this play, but I loved the idea," admits Esbjornson, "and I like the fact that it somehow gave expression to Israel's love affair with Paris. There's a romance in it all that's really fascinating." 

My Old Lady is This Month's Play for Esbjornson. Last month, he put Sally Field and Bill Irwin into Albee's Tony-winning Best Play of 2001, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?

next month (or, possibly, the month after), he will direct Off-Broadway Tuesdays with Morrie, a stage adaptation of Mitch Albom's best-selling nonfiction account of his terminally ill college professor. Jack Lemmon won his last set of laurels (an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild Award) doing the 1999 teleplay version, and now Jeffrey Hatcher has helped Albom turn the piece into a play. Esbjornson directed Alvin Epstein and Jon Tenney in its premiere last

WWW.PLAYBULL.COM    PURE THEATRE ONLINE