Uncle Vanya

[Christine710]

Interesting article Liza.  It's all about money it seems    and collaborating with the right stuff, but it will change.  I believe.  Survival. 

[Liza]

Here's some news!

Ralph Fiennes returns to the stage,...
Posted On:2/26/10 at 01:21

Ralph Fiennes solves his doctor's dilemma
Ralph Fiennes will return to the London stage in a new version of Uncle Vanya, played in the round. Fiennes told me two years ago he was thinking about starring as the doctor in Dear Uncle, Alan Ayckbourn's version of Chekhov's play, set in the Lake District in 1935.

But he has now agreed to play the Dr Astrov character - although in the new adaptation he's called Dr Charles Ash. Yelena is now Helena, and the title character will be known as Uncle Marcus.
Ken Stott (if he's able) will most likely play Uncle Marcus, and Kristin Scott Thomas will play Helena if she's available.
Likewise, Carey Mulligan, our recent Bafta best actress for An Education, has always said she would play Sonia if the dates can be made to work.
An idea being explored is for Matthew Warchus to direct the production in the round. He, and producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers, intend to find out if the Roundhouse in Camden Town is available, or if the stage from Ayckbourn's Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough (where productions are played in the round) can be replicated somewhere in London.
Fiennes has just begun pre-production and scouting locations for his film of Coriolanus, which will shoot in Belgrade with Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, Brian Cox, Eddie Marsan and others.

He won't complete his post-production work on Coriolanus until next January.
Ayckbourn's Dear Uncle: Scenes From A Country Life In Four Acts is set in the blistering hot summer, so it would best be played during a real summer season.
The dates being discussed at the moment are June 2011.
Warchus wouldn't be available until then anyway, as he's pencilled in to start directing the musical Ghost (based on the movie) at the begining of next year.
Plus the production's dates have to fit in with Ayckbourn's schedule, and he would want to be on hand in London during rehearsals, previews and for the opening night.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1253858/Madonna-signs-Abbie-Cornish-new-film-Edward-VIIIs-abdication.html#ixzz0gcWUXqYQ

http://westend.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?thread=1011982&dt=0&boardid=3

[zsuzsanna]

Finally a good news! It doesn't matter if he is named  Dr. Astrov or Charles Ash if it's faithful to Tchekhov! The whole cast is marvellous and our Sweetheart retuns to his hero-line. Only two years belated...( I hope, that nothing happens and I'll be able to make the trip to London and see him again on stage.- I'll be over 80 then).

[Christine710]

  Thanks Liza for the update.  .

[Alice]

That is FANTASTIC news!

*Does a happy dance round the flat*

 

[trilijana]

Great news, Liza!    (So "Coriolanus" will be finished by that time. Awsome  )


   what a smile 

[Liza]

Oh ...I love that photo!! Thanks trilijana!

[trugannini]

    Those twinkly eyes,  That
Smile...     Love that photo Trilijana.....thank you  thank you   

[trugannini]

Zsuszanna  You'll make it darling, just
keep working   ,   to pay for the trip.   

[trugannini]

   Great news Liza,  thanks for posting....Chelly won't believe
this.....it'll give her something else to worry about.....
 joking Chelly.     

[Chelly]

Not worried this time, Trug. Don't have to be. There's no way I could ever go see any London play.  I'm trying not to think about it now, though. It's a long way off. But then again...it's still not definite. 

[zsuzsanna]

Dear Tru, many thanks for the sweet words of encouragement, but in my age one must take everything in consideration. Besides  I'm  hopeful. I work continuously (my husband too) and it makes me happy.
Is there  any possibility , if everything is O.K., to meet you there personally?
By the way Chelly's right, the whole thing belongs now to the category of dreams.
Dreams are free...

[trugannini]

    Zsu Dreaming is also Pleasant..    I will be there in Spirit Zsuzsanna, but as things are, it is not possible for me to be there
personally.   But that is OK....I do not yearn for things I cannot have,
 I just enjoy what Is........

[Senneifinn]

Ken Stott (if he's able) will most likely play Uncle Marcus,

Ken Stott will always be DI Rebus to me Btw wasn't he in The Miracle Maker with RF too?

[Liza]

Here's another notice from Broadway.com

Ralph Fiennes to Star in Alan Ayckbourn's Adaptation of Uncle Vanya




Ralph Fiennes plans to star in new adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya written by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, according to Variety. The play, dubbed Dear Uncle, will be relocated from Russia to Britain’s Lake District in 1935. Matthew Warchus, who directed Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests in London and on Broadway, has signed on to helm a production in the summer of 2011 at an unnamed theater.

Producer David Pugh told Variety that he commissioned the adaptation after reading reviews that compared Norman to Vanya and learning that Ayckbourn considers the Chekhov classic his favorite play. Dear Uncle would be performed in the round, as are most Ayckbourn plays staged in his home theater of Scarborough, England. (The Tony-winning revival of The Normal Conquests was staged at Circle in the Square.)

Pugh and his producing partner Dafydd Rogers hope to attract a cast of stars to join Fiennes, who will play a character based on the country doctor Astrov. The Variety article threw out the names of Ken Stott (God of Carnage) in the title role, along with Kristin Scott Thomas and 2010 Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, who starred in London and Broadway productions of The Seagull.

Fiennes won a Best Actor Tony in 1995 for starring in Hamlet and most recently appeared on Broadway in 2006 in a Tony-nominated performance in Brian Friel’s Faith Healer. He worked with Warchus in the original London production of God of Carnage.

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/ralph-fiennes-star-alan-ayckbourns-adaptation-uncle-vanya/