FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
For more
information, please contact:
Jenni Benzaquen Wadsworth Theatre Contact:
Press Director Tim Choy
Geffen Playhouse Davidson
& Choy Publicity
310-208-6500 x126 323-954-7510
x13
jenni@geffenplayhouse.com
t.choy@dcpublicity.com
THE WADSWORTH THEATRE
AND GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE
PRESENT
TOVAH FELDSHUH
IN GOLDA’S BALCONY
DIRECT FROM BROADWAY IN A LIMITED
ENGAGEMENT RUN
FEBRUARY 1-20, 2005
LOS ANGELES, CA – January 27, 2005 – Tovah Feldshuh will recreate her award-winning
performance as Golda Meir in GOLDA’S BALCONY, being presented in a co-production by the Wadsworth Theatre and Geffen
Playhouse. Written by William Gibson and directed by Scott Schwartz, GOLDA’S
BALCONY is a portrait of the
indomitable Meir, the Milwaukee schoolteacher who became Prime Minister of
Israel in 1969. Much like Meir’s life, GOLDA’S BALCONY encapsulates the dramatic story of the birth of Israel
in the wake of the Holocaust, and its subsequent, seemingly endless struggle
for peace. GOLDA’S BALCONY will
run for a limited engagement from February 1-20, 2005. The official
opening night performance of GOLDA’S BALCONY is Wednesday, February 2, 2005 at 7:30PM at the
Wadsworth Theatre.
“We are delighted to bring this incredible play to Los
Angeles and present it exactly as it premiered on Broadway,” said Richard
Willis, Producer and Operator of the Wadsworth Theatre. “Tovah Feldshuh is an
extraordinary actress and her performance in Golda’s Balcony is a must see.”
“We’re so fortunate to be able to provide Los Angeles
theatergoers and our wonderful Geffen subscribers with the opportunity to see
William Gibson’s beautifully written play about a remarkable woman who spent her
life fighting for what she believed in,” said Gilbert Cates, Geffen Playhouse
Producing Director. “In Golda’s Balcony, Tovah Feldshuh brings Golda Meir to life with a passion and vitality
that is befitting a woman of Meir’s influence.”
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Direct from Broadway: Tovah Feldshuh in Golda’s
Balcony
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Feldshuh’s performance in GOLDA’S BALCONY garnered
some of the theater industry’s most coveted awards, including her 4th
Tony Award nomination for Best Actress, the Drama
Desk Award for Best Solo Performance and the Lucille Lortel Award for Best
Actress. On October 3, 2004, Feldshuh in GOLDA’S BALCONY became the longest running one-woman show
in Broadway history.
Feldshuh’s performance as Meir also
received rave reviews and accolades from the press. The Associated Press said, “Tovah Feldshuh’s marvelous, skillful portrayal
of the indomitable Golda Meir will remain in your
mind long after the curtain has come down.” And The New York Times said, “Tovah Feldshuh gives such a fiercely committed
performance that she does more than just resurrect Golda Meir: she embodies an
entire country.” In this production of GOLDA’S BALCONY, the
Wadsworth Theatre and Geffen Playhouse have made it possible for Los Angeles
theatergoers to experience the show exactly as it appeared on Broadway.
GOLDA’S BALCONY features set design by Anna Louizos (Avenue Q), costume design by Jess Goldstein (Enchanted April), lighting design by Howell Binkley (Bat Boy, Kiss
of the Spiderwoman), original sound
design and additional music by Mark Bennett (Henry IV, the upcoming Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), projection design by Batwin & Robin Productions
(The Rocky Horror Show), wig
design by Paul Huntley and make-up by Academy Award winner John Caglione, Jr. (Dick
Tracy, The Hours).
GOLDA’S BALCONY premiered March 26, 2003 at the Manhattan
Ensemble Theater, later moving to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre, where it ran
from October 3, 2003 through January 2, 2005.
GOLDA’S
BALCONY marks the
third play of the Geffen Playhouse 2004-2005 season in the first collaboration
between the Wadsworth Theatre and Geffen Playhouse. Single ticket prices for GOLDA’S BALCONY range from $20-$64 and can be purchased
through Ticketmaster at 213-365-3500, online at www.ticketmaster.com, and all
Ticketmaster outlets. Tickets may also be purchased at the Wadsworth Theatre
box office between 10am and 5pm, Monday through Sunday. All tickets are subject
to a $2 facility fee.
Special
VIP packages for GOLDA’S BALCONY featuring seating in the first 11 rows, a collector’s item
DVD documentary signed by Feldshuh about the life of Meir and Feldshuh’s own
journey to move GOLDA’S BALCONY to the Broadway stage, a Tony Awards campaign folder, a copy of
the play, and one parking pass. GOLDA’S BALCONY VIP packages can be purchased for $127 by contacting the
Wadsworth Theatre box office at 310-479-3636.
GOLDA’S BALCONY will be presented at the Wadsworth
Theatre, located at 11301 Wilshire Boulevard, building 226, on the grounds of
the Veterans Administration in Brentwood.
The performance schedule is as follows: Tues., Feb. 1 at 3:30pm and 7:30pm (both are preview
performances), Wed., Feb. 2 at 7:30pm; Thurs., Feb. 3 at 7:30pm; Fri., Feb. 4 at 4pm and 8pm; Sat., Feb. 5 at 4pm and 8pm; Wed., Feb. 9 at 7:30pm; Thurs., Feb. 10 at 7:30pm; Fri., Feb. 11 at 8pm; Sat., Feb. 12
at 4pm and 8pm; Sun., Feb. 13
at 3pm and 7pm; Tues., Feb. 15 at
7:30pm; Wed., Feb. 16 at
3:30pm and 7:30pm; Thurs., Feb. 17 at 7:30pm; Fri., Feb. 18 at 8pm; Sat., Feb. 19
at 4pm and 8pm; Sun., Feb. 20
at 3pm and 7pm.
The Wadsworth Theatre is operated by Richard Willis and Martin Markinson.
Geffen Playhouse is headed by Producing Director Gilbert Cates, Artistic
Director Randall Arney and Managing Director Stephen Eich.
GOLDA’S
BALCONY BIOGRAPHIES
TOVAH
FELDSHUH (Golda Meir) has received
four Tony Award nominations for Best Actress. She has won four Drama Desk
Awards, four Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Obie, the Theatre World, and the
Lucille Lortel Awards for her many outstanding performances. She created the title role in Yentl on Broadway and the memorable role of ‘Helena,’ the
Czech freedom fighter in the acclaimed miniseries “Holocaust,” for which she
received an Emmy Award
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Direct from Broadway: Tovah Feldshuh in Golda’s
Balcony
Page 3
nomination.
Some of her other New York credits include the title roles in the Roundabout
Theatre’s She Stoops to Conquer and
Mistress of the Inn; BAM’s Three
Sisters with Rosemary Harris and
Ellen Burstyn; the long-running hit The Vagina Monologues; and roles on Broadway in Cyrano, Rodgers and Hart and Dreyfus in Rehearsal. Off-Broadway she starred as Tallulah Bankhead in her
own Tallulah Hallelujah!, which
was chosen in 2000 as one of the “Ten Best Plays of the Year” by USA Today. Among other roles, Feldshuh has portrayed Diana
Vreeland in Full Gallop, Jean
Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Sarah Bernhardt, Stella Adler, Sophie Tucker, Katharine Hepburn,
three queens of Henry VIII and nine Jews from birth to death in Off-Broadway’s Hello
Muddah, Hello Fad-duh. On television,
she received her first Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Czech freedom
fighter Helena in “Holocaust.” She has starred opposite Tommy Lee Jones as the
young Katharine Hepburn in “The Amazing Howard Hughes,” James Woods in “Citizen
Cohn,” Bill Cosby on “The Cosby Mysteries” and “The Cosby Show” and Richard
Dreyfuss in “The Education of Max Bickford,” to name a few. In September 2004,
she was nominated for her second Emmy for her work on “Law & Order” as
defense attorney Danielle Melnick. Feature films include Fox Searchlight’s Kissing
Jessica Stein, for which she won the
Golden Satellite Award as Best Supporting Actress; A Walk on the Moon with Diane Lane; Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei; The Corruptor with Mark Wahlberg; Daniel; The Idolmaker (Taylor Hackford); Brewster’s Millions; Cheaper to Keep Her; The Blue Iguana; A Day in October; 3
Little Wolffs; Toll Booth; Friends and Family; Old Love;
Nunzio; and The Believer. She is currently filming Just My Luck with Lindsay Lohan for 20th Century Fox. Her
one-woman show Tovah: Out of Her Mind! sold out in London’s West End at the Duke of York’s and culminated in a
symphonic concert with Billy Crystal at Los Angeles’ Royce Hall. The Boston
Globe selected Tovah: Out of Her
Mind! as the best one-person show of
2000. Other West Coast credits include starring at the Ahmanson as Regina in
Lillian Hellman’s famed “Another Part of the Forest” and serving as a leading lady for Jack O’Brien and
Craig Noel at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego (Romeo and Juliet, Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Country Wife, “Tovah: A Rush Hour
Review”) where she was named an
Associate Artist and won two Drama Logue Awards for her Juliet and for her
first one woman show: “Tovah: A Rush Hour Review.” www.tovahfeldshuh.com.
WILLIAM GIBSON (Playwright) was born in 1914 in New York City. He has written poetry, fiction and
scripts for the stage, television and films. His plays include The Miracle Worker,
which was originally produced for TV’s Playhouse 90, Two for the Seesaw, A Cry of Players, Golda, The
Butterfingers Angel, Monday After the Miracle, Goodly Creatures
and Handy Dandy. He is the author of a novel, The
Cobweb, as well as the musical
version of Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy. Gibson’s several books include The
Seesaw Log, A Mass for the Dead
– a study of his family – and a volume of poetry entitled Winter
Crook. His book, A Season in Heaven, takes a look at metaphysics and the creative
process. His latest book is Shakespeare’s Game, a critical study. GOLDA’S BALCONY marks Gibson’s first play on Broadway in more than 25 years.
SCOTT SCHWARTZ (Director) most recently directed The Foreigner, starring Matthew Broderick, for
Roundabout Theatre Company in New York. On Broadway, he directed GOLDA’S
BALCONY and
co-directed JANE EYRE with John Caird. His Off-Broadway credits include Bat
Boy: The Musical; Tick,
Tick… Boom!; Franz Kafka’s The Castle and GOLDA’S BALCONY (both at Manhattan Ensemble Theater); Miss Julie; and No Way To Treat A Lady. Other recent credits include
“Lavender Girl” as part of 3hree, an evening of one-act musicals conceived by Harold Prince, at
the Ahmanson Theater and his own adaptation of Willa Cather’s novel My
Antonia at TheatreWorks
in Calfornia. He has worked at regional theaters including La Jolla
Playhouse, Ahmanson Theater, Goodspeed Opera House, Pasadena Playhouse,
Berkshire Theater Festival, Signature Theater, Prince Theater, Annenberg
Center, Virginia Stage Company, and others. For radio broadcast, Schwartz
directed the Grammy-nominated recording of The Prisoner Of Second Avenue, starring Richard Dreyfus and Marsha
Mason, for L.A. TheatreWorks. He is a member of the Society of Stage
Directors and Choreographers and is a graduate of Harvard University.
GOLDA MEIR
was born Goldie Mabovitch in Kiev, Russia, on May 3, 1898. Her father, Moshe
Mabovitch, was an impoverished carpenter who longed to give his family a better
life. In 1903, he went to America and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Meir
taught in the Milwaukee Public School system and became an active Zionist and
socialist. Meir married Morris Meyerson in 1917. Although Meyerson shared her
beliefs, he was a quiet man who was more
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Direct from Broadway: Tovah Feldshuh in Golda’s
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interested in political theory than in being a part of
actual change. Meir convinced her husband to settle in Palestine in 1921,
joining kibbutz Merhavyah. They had two children together but grew apart over
the years. Meir held top positions in the World Zionist Agency and the Jewish
Agency and was sent to the Pioneer Women’s Organization in the United States as
a representative from 1932-34. On her return to Israel, she joined the
executive committee of its largest labor union, the Histadrut, and in 1948 she
became a signatory of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. She was
ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1948, and Minister of Labor from 1949 to
1956. In 1956 she changed her name to Meir, a Hebrew form of Meyerson, and
became Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the 1960’s she was secretary general for
the Labour Party, and in 1969 she was only the second woman in the world to
become a prime minister. In this
capacity, her greatest test occurred on October 6, 1973, when Syria and Egypt
attacked Israel in what came to be known as the Yom Kippur war. Meir and her
defense minister, Moshe Dayan, were caught off-guard by the attack, and most
historians agree that Israel would have lost the war if the U.S. and other
Western nations had not acted swiftly to come to its aid. In 1974, Meir’s Labor
Party lost ground in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and she resigned soon
after. In her last years, she became closer to her family. Meir died on
December 8, 1978.
For more
information about Golda’s Balcony, log on to www.goldasbalcony.com.
Geffen’s
2004-2005 Season Continues
You Can’t Take It With You
April 12-May 22, 2005
Written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
Winner, 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Geffen Playhouse celebrates the 100th
birthday of Moss Hart with a revival of the Pulitzer Prize winning play You
Can’t Take It With You. Hart
co-wrote this American classic with his partner George S. Kaufman. You Can’t Take It With You has been credited for paving the way for the TV sitcom,
featuring what may have been Broadway’s first dysfunctional family. Directed by
Christopher Hart, the son of Moss Hart, the Geffen Playhouse production of You
Can’t Take It With You begins in
previews at the Brentwood Theatre on April 12, 2005 and runs through May 22,
with press performances beginning April 20, 2005.
Jefferson Mays in I Am My Own Wife
June 14-July 10, 2005
Written by Doug Wright
Directed by Moisés Kaufman
Winner, 2004 Tony Award for Best Play
Winner, 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor
Winner, 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Winner, 2004 Drama League Award for Best Play
Winner, 2004 Drama Desk Award for Best Play
Last year, The New York Times praised Doug Wright’s solo show I Am My Own
Wife as “the most stirring new
work to appear on Broadway this fall.”
The Geffen Playhouse production of this 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner will
feature the original acclaimed Broadway actor/director team of Jefferson Mays
and Moisés Kaufman. Based on a true story, and inspired by interviews conducted
by Wright over several years, I Am My Own Wife swept the 2004 Tony Awards. The Geffen Playhouse
production of I Am My Own Wife
opens on June 14 through July 10, 2005 at the Wadsworth Theatre.
For more information on Geffen Playhouse
productions, call the Geffen Playhouse box office at 310-208-5454 or visit www.geffenplayhouse.com.
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