Malaparte (theater company)

Last updated
Malaparte
Formation1991
Founders Josh Hamilton
Ethan Hawke
Ami Armstrong
Robert Sean Leonard
James Waterston
Jonathan Marc Sherman
Frank Whaley
Steve Zahn
Cassandra Han
Dissolved2000
Type Non-profit theatre company
Legal statusDefunct
Location

Malaparte was an American non-profit theater company based in New York City, New York.

Contents

History

While driving cross-country in 1991, actors Josh Hamilton and Ethan Hawke and playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman decided to form a theater company. [1] Actors Robert Sean Leonard, Frank Whaley, and Steve Zahn joined the fledgling enterprise, which Hawke named after an obscure novel. [2] Leonard later explained, "We would be sitting around New York a lot, and we bowled a lot, and eventually we thought, 'When we're not doing anything, why don't we see if we can put some new plays on?'" [3]

Malaparte's first production was a new translation of Luigi Pirandello's 1918 play A Joke starring Hamilton, Hawke, Sherman, Cynthia Nixon, and Austin Pendleton, which ran from October 9–31, 1992. [4] The company operated for three seasons in the 1990s as the members juggled film and television work; there were often disputes over fundraising, casting, and play selection. [2] Shows were performed in rented venues throughout Manhattan, with a flat $10 ticket price. [3] In 1992, Jason Blum joined Malaparte as co-producing director with Ami Armstrong who had been running the office out of her home apartment. Blum personally hawked fliers in Times Square, shouting, "Don't go see some Broadway show! Come see a new play by an American playwright!" [5] The New Yorker critic Hilton Als wrote that the Malaparte collective "brought a new take on male anxiety to the American theatre, and was not embarrassed by its love of women, or its romanticism." [6]

Malaparte officially dissolved in 2000, in part because the members wanted to devote more time to their children. [7] In 2005, Hawke referred to the company's heyday as "pretty much the most thrilling period of my life". [8]

Productions

TitleAuthor(s)DirectorCastRunVenue
1 A Joke Luigi Pirandello Keith Bunin Josh Hamilton, Ethan Hawke, Cynthia Nixon, Austin Pendleton, Jonathan Marc Sherman October 9–31, 1992 Sanford Meisner Theatre
2 Wild Dogs! Daniel J. Rubin Ethan Hawke Amelia Campbell, Isabel Gillies, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Steve Zahn December 3–19, 1993 Theatre Row Theatre
3Acoustic Night (coffeehouse) Jesse Harris, Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Lisa Loeb, Frank Whaley December 21, 1993Theatre Row Theatre
4 Good Evening Dudley Moore and Peter Cook James Waterston Robert Sean Leonard, Frank WhaleyDecember 30–31, 1993
February 9–17, 1994
Theatre Row Theatre
Wet Bank Cafe
5 It Changes Every Year and Sons and Fathers (one-acts) Jon Robin Baitz and Jonathan Marc Sherman Nicholas Martin Brooks Ashmanskas, Calista Flockhart, Dana Ivey, Josh Hamilton, Ethan Hawke, Steve ZahnJanuary 7–22, 1994Theatre Row Theatre
6 Veins and Thumbtacks Jonathan Marc ShermanEthan HawkeNicole Burdette, Lynn Cohen, Frank WhaleyOctober 7–23, 1994Theatre Row Theatre
7 Hesh Matthew Weiss Frank Pugliese Nadia Dajani, Ned Eisenberg, Ethan Hawke, Frank WhaleyNovember 4–12, 1994Theatre Row Theatre
8 The Great Unwashed Nicole Burdette Max Mayer Lynn Cohen, Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Martha Plimpton, Frank WhaleyNovember 18 – December 4, 1994Theatre Row Theatre

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Delpy</span> French and American actress and filmmaker (born 1969)

Julie Delpy is a French and American actress, screenwriter and film director. She studied filmmaking at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa (1990), Voyager (1991), Three Colours: White (1993), the Before trilogy, An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), and 2 Days in Paris (2007).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethan Hawke</span> American actor and film director (born 1970)

Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, author and film director. He made his film debut in Explorers (1985), before making a breakthrough performance in Dead Poets Society (1989). Hawke starred alongside Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy from 1995 to 2013. Hawke received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Training Day (2001) and Boyhood (2014) and two for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). Other notable roles include in Reality Bites (1994), Gattaca (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Maggie's Plan (2015), First Reformed (2017), The Black Phone (2021) and The Northman (2022).

<i>A Lie of the Mind</i>

A Lie of the Mind is a play written by Sam Shepard, first staged at the off-Broadway Promenade Theater on 5 December 1985. The play was directed by Shepard himself with stars Harvey Keitel as Jake, Amanda Plummer as Beth, Aidan Quinn as Frankie, Geraldine Page as Lorraine, and Will Patton as Mike. The music was composed and played by the North Carolina bluegrass group the Red Clay Ramblers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Zahn</span> American actor

Steven James Zahn is an American actor. His film roles include Reality Bites (1994), Stuart Little (1999), Daddy Day Care (2003), Shattered Glass (2003), Sahara (2005), Chicken Little (2005), the Diary of a Wimpy Kid trilogy (2010–2012), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), The Good Dinosaur (2015), and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). On television, Zahn appeared as Davis McAlary on HBO's Treme (2010–2013), and as Mark Mossbacher in the first season of the HBO satire comedy miniseries The White Lotus (2021), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Zahn won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the film Happy, Texas (1999).

John Henry Lahr is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at The New Yorker. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been called "one of the greatest biographers writing today".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josh Charles</span> American actor (born 1971)

Joshua Aaron Charles is an American film, television, and theater actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on Sports Night, Will Gardner on The Good Wife, which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and his early work as Knox Overstreet in Dead Poets Society and Bryan from Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Sean Leonard</span> American actor

Robert Lawrence Leonard, known by his stage name Robert Sean Leonard, is an American actor. He is known for playing Dr. James Wilson in the television series House (2004–2012) and Neil Perry in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.

Jonathan Marc Sherman is an American playwright, poet, and actor. He submitted plays for several years to Young Playwrights Inc.'s National Playwrights Competition before they did a staged reading of his one-act, Serendipity and Serenity in 1987, followed by a full production of his next play, Women and Wallace (1988).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Young (actress)</span> American actress

Karen Young is an American film, television, and stage actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soho Repertory Theatre</span> American Off-Broadway theater company

The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers. The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."

James Waterston is an American actor whose first role was playing Gerard Pitts in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.

Richard John Nelson is an American playwright and librettist. He wrote the book for the 2000 Broadway musical James Joyce's The Dead, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, as well as the book for the 1988 Broadway production of Chess. He is also the writer of the critically acclaimed play cycle The Rhinebeck Panorama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoe Kazan</span> American actress (born 1983)

Zoe Swicord Kazan is an American actress, playwright, and screenwriter. She made her acting debut in the film Swordswallowers and Thin Men (2003) and later acted in films such as The Savages (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008), and It's Complicated (2009). She starred in Happythankyoumoreplease (2010), Meek's Cutoff (2010), Ruby Sparks (2012), What If (2013), The Big Sick (2017), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), and She Said (2021). She also wrote Ruby Sparks and co-wrote Wildlife (2018) with her partner Paul Dano.

Nicole Maria Burdette is an American playwright and actress. She is also an assistant professor at The New School for Drama.

Nadia Dajani is an American actress. She hosts the baseball comedy web series Caught Off Base with Nadia.

David Adjmi is an American playwright who is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, the inaugural Steinberg Playwright Award, a Bush Artists Fellowship, and the Kesselring Prize for Drama.

Hilton Als is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for The New Yorker. He is a former staff writer for The Village Voice and former editor-at-large at Vibe magazine.

Mia Barron is an American actress. She won the Lucille Lortel Award for her performance in the Lincoln Center production of The Coast Starlight, an Obie award for her performance in Hurricane Diane at New York Theatre Workshop, as well as a second Obie and a Drama Desk Award for her work in the ensemble of the Off Broadway production of The Wolves. She co-created, along with director Lars Jan, a theatrical adaptation of Joan Didion's The White Album, which premiered in New York to sold out houses at BAM's Harvey Theatre as part of the Next Wave Festival. She is known for her extensive New York City theater credits, alongside her television and independent film work, most recently Half Empty Half Full, which received a New York Film Award nomination for Best Ensemble. She is also known as the voice of Molotov and Sally Impossible on the Cartoon Network's long-running comic science-fiction series, The Venture Bros.

<i>The Good Lord Bird</i> (miniseries) 2020 miniseries by Ethan Hawke

The Good Lord Bird is a 2020 American historical drama television miniseries, based on the 2013 novel of the same name by James McBride. Focusing on John Brown's attack on American slavery, the series was created and executive produced by Ethan Hawke and Mark Richard. Produced by Jason Blum, through Blumhouse Television, it premiered on October 4, 2020, on Showtime.

<i>The Last Movie Stars</i> 2022 documentary series directed by Ethan Hawke

The Last Movie Stars is an American documentary television miniseries created by Emily Wachtel and directed by Ethan Hawke. All six episodes of the series were released on HBO Max on July 21, 2022. After discovering transcripts of interviews conducted at Paul Newman's request for an abandoned memoir project, a daughter of Newman and Joanne Woodward asked Hawke to tell their story, personally and as artists. Hawke assembled actors to read pieces of the interviews, conducted and edited by writer Stewart Stern, including interviews with Newman and Woodward. The marriage spanned 50 years and was often cited as one of the great Hollywood successful marriages and love stories.

References

  1. Brown, Emma (February 8, 2013). "Life's a Baal for Jonathan Marc Sherman," Interview . Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  2. 1 2 Sternbergh, Adam (January 31, 2010). "The Ethan Hawke Actors Studio," New York . Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  3. 1 2 Rousuck, J. Wynn (March 16, 1997). "Model Role Actor," The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  4. Willis, John, ed. Theater World: 1992-1993 Season. New York: Applause, 1995. 79.
  5. Nicholson, Amy (October 19, 2015). "Can Budget-Slasher Jason Blum Prove the Way Hollywood Makes Movies Is Horrifyingly Wrong?," LA Weekly . Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  6. Als, Hilton (October 29, 2007). "Boys to Men," The New Yorker . Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  7. Landman, Beth, and Ian Spiegelman (May 15, 2000). "Babies Lower Boom on Theater Group," New York . Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  8. Bacalzo, Dan (January 3, 2005). "Flying High," TheaterMania.com. Retrieved September 16, 2017.