Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams

(New York, NY) Fresh from Ivanov starring Ethan Hawke, Obie- Award winning director Austin Pendleton directs Tennessee Williams' stark and religiously sensual morality play Suddenly Last Summer with the Mississippi Mud. This is the play that moved Brookes Atkinson to praise Williams as being "at the peak of his talent as a poet of the damned." It is brought to life in a new bold raw space production that places center stage the lush language of this modern fable. Mr. Pendleton stars as Dr. Cukrowicz… Show more and helms a talented cast of actors that features Johanna Leister (Broadway: Whose Life Is It Anyway w/Mary Tyler Moore, Tartuffe w/Victor Garber, Dracula w/Raul Julia, and Whodunnit w/Fred Gwynne; Beyond The Horizon at Irish Rep; 4 years as Phoebe Smith on The Edge Of Night) and Jen Danby (Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference, Orson's Shadow with Mississippi Mud, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Mud Lab production, directed by Austin Pendleton, "Paula" and "Bad Pictures" vlogisodes with The Wooster Group, the film Run #3 ).
Austin Pendleton (Director) most recently, in New York, directed, and stepped into a role in, Ivanov at CSC, starring Ethan Hawke. In Chicago, he has just directed The Birthday Party at Steppenwolf, where he is a member of the Ensemble. He has directed several Mississippi Mud productions, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and is now preparing productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Vieux Carre, and Lust, among others, all for Mud. He won an Obie in 2011 for directing Three Sisters for CSC, with Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gylenhall. He has acted in many movies and television episodes. His last Broadway appearance was in The Diary Of Anne Frank, with Natalie Portman and Linda Lavin, in a script revised by Wendy Kesselman, in whose musical, The Black Monk, he also appeared. He has written three plays: Orson's Shadow, produced at Mud after it's off-Broadway run in 2005 at the Barrow St. Theatre, directed by David Cromer; Uncle Bob, which has been produced in NY, around the country and internationally; and Booth, which starred Frank Langella in its productions in New York, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre; as well as the libretto for A Minister's Wife, music by Josh Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen, produced in 2011 at Lincoln Center). All of these works have been published. He teaches acting at HB Studio, in New York.
SYNOPSIS
The wealthy Violet Venable attempts to bribe Dr. Cukrowicz, a psycho-surgeon from a New Orleans mental hospital that is desperately in need of funds, into lobotomizing her niece, Catharine Holly. Violet wants the operation performed in order to prevent Catharine from defiling the memory of her son, the poet Sebastian. Catharine has been babbling obscenely about Sebastian's mysterious death that she witnessed while on holiday together in Spain the previous summer.

Showtimes:
Friday & Saturday @8pm
Sunday @7pm
Monday @8:30pm
Previews Feb 9, 10 & 11
Limited run Feb 15 - March 4, 2013
Saturday Talk Backs Suddenly Last Summer with Austin Pendleton and Cast
February 9, 16, 23 & March 2nd

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