LONDON -- "The Exonerated," the recent Off Broadway success drawn from the stories of men and women who have done time on death row, is eyeing a U.K. run this spring, with Vanessa Redgrave and Aidan Quinn primed to be among the play's initial cast.
Barry Weissler, the Broadway producer best known for such tuners as "Chicago," "Grease" and the recent Bernadette Peters revival of "Annie Get Your Gun," told
Daily Variety he and his co-producer and wife, Fran, hope to open the play on this side of the Atlantic in March, either out of town or, more likely, directly on the West End.
If all goes according to plan, Redgrave and Quinn would kick off what Weissler referred to as "revolving casting" on the order of the New York run, where Richard Dreyfuss and Jill Clayburgh led an ever-changing list of stars who toplined Bob Balaban's bare-bones staging at 45 Bleecker. Quinn was among the actors who did the play in New York.
The Weisslers had nothing to do with Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank's play Off Broadway or in Los Angeles, where it was staged prior to New York. But, said Barry Weissler, "I think it's an important piece and deserves an English platform. ... The stories of these innocent people are just heart-rending.
"It's brilliant social commentary and given out in a very entertaining way," he added.
Weissler has been in London for the last week or so checking out possible venues for the play, while mulling the prospect of a London run a year or so from now of his Broadway revival of "Wonderful Town," for which, he said, Maria Friedman would be ideal casting. (Whether Friedman will be available is another matter, since she opens on the West End in September in Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical "The Woman in White.")
Weissler also has been going to the theater: "His Dark Materials" and "The Pillowman," both at the National, as well as "Journey's End" on the West End. The impresario had high praise for "Pillowman," calling it "a play for our time: You sat there, and you were on a breathless journey," and soon will be courting two of its creators.
Weissler would like "Pillowman" director John Crowley, a London-based Irishman, and his American designer, Scott Pask, to join the creative team of his new Broadway version of "The Blue Angel," to be scripted by Peter Parnell ("The Cider House Rules," "QED") with music by Stephen Trask ("The Station Agent," "Hedwig and the Angry Inch").
Pask is already aboard the Weisslers' upcoming Broadway revival of "Sweet Charity," to be directed by Walter Bobbie.
Meanwhile, "Exonerated" will step up the Weisslers' presence on the West End, where they have been repped since November 1997 by long-runner "Chicago" at the Adelphi. The Kander & Ebb musical revival has been as unstoppable in Europe as anywhere else and will open in both Paris and Milan within the next month.
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