The Sullivan Project: Take 2 with Donald Margulies and LONG LOST

Since 2013, Daniel Sullivan, the much-lauded director of plays like Proof, Rabbit Hole and Dinner with Friends, has curated a project within the University of Illinois' theater department -- Illinois Theatre -- to bring new, in-development works to Urbana. Sullivan holds the Swanlund Chair within the department, but it's his national resume that is impressive and deep, with honors ranging from induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2011 to a Drama Desk Award, two Lucille Lortel Awards, an Obie and an Outer Critics Circle Award. Three plays he's been associated with have won the Pulitzer Prize and he has been nominated for the Tony for Best Director six times, winning that award for Proof.

He has worked extensively with playwright Donald Margulies, directing Sight Unseen, Brooklyn Boy, Time Stands Still and The Country House on Broadway along with Dinner with Friends Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theatre. It should come as no surprise that this year's Sullivan Project put Daniel Sullivan back together with Donald Margulies, with a new family drama called Long Lost.

Like Lost Lake, a David Auburn play workshopped through the Sullivan Project in 2014, Long Lost* was still in development, with the playwright around to make changes and tweaks through the rehearsal process. Margulies first brought Long Lost, or at least the beginning of it, to the Ingram New Works Festival in Nashville last summer, with actor David Alford, a resident of Nashville, in the role of Billy, the ne'er-do-well brother whose arrival jumpstarts the action. Alford is a familiar face to fans of Nashville the TV show, where he played Bucky Dawes, the patient, much put-upon manager of country superstar Rayna Jaymes, played by Connie Britton.

The beauty of The Sullivan Project is the chance to see new scripts from America's best playwrights, as well as Equity actors at their top of their game. Alford's role as Billy was very different from Bucky, as you might imagine, and he was terrific, as was Kelly AuCoin, who played opposite him as David, the more successful brother, the one who is none too pleased when his bad penny of a sibling turns up. Kelly McAndrew and Michael Goldsmith completed the cast, playing David's wife and son, and they were also on target, even if their roles didn't feel quite as credible or as fully developed as the two brothers'.

McAndrew was part of this spring's Humana Festival of New American Plays as the title character in Brendan Pelsue's dystopic Wellesley Girl. She, too, played a starkly different character in that one. It's always fun to see such good actors show off their versatility.

Although I wasn't given any kind of order not to review Long Lost, I also wasn't invited to offer my thoughts, plus it's pretty clear that the whole point of this way-out-of-town try-out is to "help playwrights realize the creative impulse" with professional productions staged "away from the high-beam intensity of the big-city media machine," as producer Jeffrey Eric Jenkins' program notes put it. I am under no illusion that my blog possesses high beams or any sort of media machine, but still... I understand the need to let a play gestate without a lot of outside criticism. So the above comment about the fact that the wife and son seemed less credible is the extent of my critique.

Lost Lake went on to a New York production, and I'm guessing Long Lost has the same goal. Like the former play, this one has roles that should be catnip to mature actors. And even if Long Lost goes nowhere, The Sullivan Project is a worthy effort on its own, as a way to encourage and support new work that needs to get up on its feet before it can run. Kudos to Sullivan and Jenkins, who is the head of Illinois Theatre, for making it happen twice. Here's to the third iteration of The Sullivan Project, whenever that happens.

* If you've noticed, like I did, that the first two works in The Sullivan Project both have the word "lost" in their titles, then you also may be speculating on the next plays that would continue the string. Not with "lost" specifically, but with one-syllable, four-letter words beginning with L which flip from the first position to the second. After Long Lost, can we expect Life Long in 2018? And then Love Life in 2020. An then Last Love in 2022. That's where I run out of options, but if you have a four-letter L word that can go before Last, feel free to send it along. Of course, it may just be that "lost" is a prime target for drama, in which case my other L-words aren't going to work, anyway.

TIME STANDS STILL Tomorrow at Heartland Theatre

You may recall Dinner with Friends, the Donald Margulies play that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama back in 2000. In that play, Margulies took a sometimes comedic, sometimes serious look at two couples, longtime friends, and the repercussions in the lives of Couple No. 1 when Couple No. 2 split up. With a script that moved from the Humana Festival to an Off-Broadway production and then to HBO for a TV movie, Margulies showed a knack for understanding what makes relationships tick and what makes them explode.

He continues that quest to understand how we connect emotionally with other people, along with some added insight on how we connect emotionally with the world, in Time Stands Still, the 2010 Tony Award nominee that opens tomorrow night at Heartland Theatre.

On Broadway, Laura Linney played Sarah, the prickly photojournalist who was injured on the job while taking pictures of some far-off conflict, now returned to New York and wondering where she belongs, with whom, and under what circumstances. First she needs to heal on the outside, but then... Can she get married and "settle down" like normal people? Or is her mission in life to observe and record, but not get involved? How can she find a way to handle a life without bombs exploding and people dying every time she looks through her camera lens?

Cristen Susong

Cristen Susong, who has brought all kinds of warmth and charm to her roles in the past, will play Sarah for Heartland Theatre. This new character -- purposefully distant, sarcastic, antisocial -- seems like a bit of a departure for someone like Susong, who is quite clearly firmly connected to her family and her community. I asked Cristen whether she thought Sarah was as different from her as I did. After saying that she "can't help but get emotionally involved" in her world, Susong describes Sarah as "so able to compartmentalize. She takes the whole experience with Tariq [a colleague she lost] and she locks it away. She won't engage with the reality around her."

I think it's that distance, that lack of engagement, that Margulies was going for, both as an examination of the traditional role of a journalist -- to record and report, but not get involved or try to solve anything or save anyone -- and whether that's a healthy way to live, as well as a critical take on defense mechanisms. If looking at the world and its terrible troubles causes us pain, should we blind ourselves? If reaching out to other people causes us heartache, should we cut off the joy along with the sadness?

Sarah faces those questions in her relationship with her longtime boyfriend, James, played for Heartland by David Krostal, her editor, played by Harold Chapman, and the editor's much younger girlfriend, Mandy, played by Colleen Longo. Mandy looks at life from an opposite perspective from Sarah -- she's young, happy, naive, optimistic -- and that, too, gives Sarah pause.

The different moods in the script add up to a challenging directing assignment, but if anyone if up to it, it's veteran director Sandra Zielinski, who most recently took on Brecht's Mother Courage at Illinois State University, Chekhov's Three Sisters as a showcase for ISU's last class of MFA actors, and Joel Drake Johnson's dysfunctional family drama The End of the Tour for Heartland. End of the Tour also featured Cristen Susong, that time playing a wife, mother and daughter at the end of her rope. It was the family connections that were plaguing her in that play, and Sarah's life with no strings and no connections might've looked pretty attractive to poor Jan in The End of the Tour.

Time Stands Still opens tomorrow night at Heartland Theatre, with performances Thursday through Sunday from February 14 till March 3. For information about the play, click here. For reservation information, click here.

More Casting News: TIME STANDS STILL at Heartland

Heartland Theatre and director Sandi Zielinski have announced casting for their February production of Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still, a Tony nominee for Best Play in 2010.

Cristen Susong will lead the cast as Sarah, a photojournalist injured while taking pictures in a Mideast hot spot. She has come home to New York to try to patch herself together, physically and emotionally, while grappling with the realities of everyday life. Now that she is in less danger, she has more time to reflect on who she is and what she wants. Her longtime boyfriend, James, who will be played for Heartland by David Krostal, is also a journalist and he, too, made his living reporting on strife and violence in other lands. But he is ready to kick back and relax, while Sarah isn't. Margulies' script raises issues of personal responsibility -- Is reporting enough? How can witnesses not intercede, even if they are carrying cameras? -- as well as what makes life worthwhile and what makes life for a woman worthwhile, contrasting Sarah's life of work and adrenaline against the more traditional world of marriage and motherhood.

Susong was last at Heartland in The End of the Tour, the dysfunctional family drama from Joel Drake Johnson, while Krostal played the fantasy husband in Woman in Mind and half the town of Tuna, Texas, in A Tuna Christmas.

Also in Time Stands Still will be Harold Chapman as Sarah's editor Richard, and Colleen Longo as Mandy, Richard's much-younger romantic interest. Chapman's name is new to me, but Longo's is familiar from her recent terrific work in These Shining Lives at Heartland as well as her days at ISU, where she was a lovely Rosemary in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Heartland Theatre's production of Time Stands Still opens with a special Pay What You Can preview on February 14 and continues through March 3, 2013.

Auditions Announced for TIME STANDS STILL at Heartland

Time Stands Still, the Donald Margulies play about journalists, ethics and how covering international conflict affects one's personal life is scheduled to play at Heartland Theatre next Feburary. In the meantime, director Sandra Zielinski will be assembling her team of actors and getting the play's gritty issues up on their feet. To that end, Zielinski will be holding auditions December 16, 17 and 18 at Heartland Theatre.

There are two women and two men in Time Stands Still, with photojournalist Sarah front and center. When the play begins, Sarah is attempting to mend after suffering injuries in a bombing somewhere in the Mideast. She's used to recording events as they unfold, right there on the front line, and this recuperation period safe at home makes her uneasy. Does no excitement and no danger also mean no purpose?

Her long-time boyfriend, James, himself a journalist, is already there, waiting at home. He was injured, too, and that has made him think it's time to settle down and stop traveling halfway around the world, putting himself in the middle of other people's messes. He wants to get married, have kids, and act like normal people for a change.

Sarah has never considered herself the marrying kind, and the example of her editor, Richard, and his new bride, Mandy, who's half his age, isn't exactly endearing Sarah to the institution. To Sarah, Mandy seems like a cheerfully brainless twit. The fact that she's perfectly happy that way is is even more infuriating.

Who's right? Who's wrong? What is the point of a well-lived life, anyway? Is it ever possible to be an objective observer and not get involved when the world is exploding around you?

In the Broadway production of Time Stands Still directed by the legendary Daniel Sullivan, Laura Linney played Sarah, with Brian d'Arcy James as James, Eric Bogosian as Richard the editor, and Alicia Silverstone as Mandy. Earlier this year, Austin Pendleton directed it for Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, with Sally Murphy as Sarah, Randall Newsome as James, ISU alum Frances Guinan as Richard and Kristina Valada-Viars as Mandy.

If the play's issues of responsibility, ethics and personal choices appeal to you and you feel like you fit one of those roles, you'll want to pencil December 16, 17 and 18 in on your calendar. Auditions will be held from 2 to 4:30 pm on Sunday the 16th, 7 to 10 on Monday the 17th, and 7 to 9 pm on Tuesday the 18th. For more information, you can visit Heartland's Auditions page here, or the current season page here.

And if you'd like a copy of the script to study up, email me, 'cause I have one!

Heartland Theatre Announces What's Up for 2012-13

Heartland Theatre Company has announced its 2012-13 season, beginning with the very popular 10-Minute Play Festival, running from June 7 to July 1.

This year, the 10-Minute Play Festival's theme is "Playing Games," with each of the eight winning plays involving a game of some sort. The plays range from John D. Poling's "Destiny's Tug-of-War," about a divorced couple and the wife's new partner, all three worried about the dog caught between them, to Austin Steinmetz's "Word Play," about a world Scrabble champ scrambling to stay on top, and Erin Moughon's "In Memory of Calvinball," about a game whose only rule is that rules constantly change. For more information about all the plays and the "Playing Games" festival, click here. You are advised to make your reservations early, as it is always an audience favorite.

Coming in July is New Plays from the Heartland, which features three one-acts written by Midwestern playwrights just for Heartland. The New Plays' theme is "Summer in the Heartland," with the three winning plays performed July 13 and 14 in conjunction with a master class and forum conducted by Douglas Post ("Bloodshot," "Drowning Sorrows"), this year's guest playwright in residence.

The fall kicks off with "These Shining Lives," Melanie Marnich's sad and beautiful look at the women who made radium-dial watches in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920s. "These Shining Lives," directed by Illinois State University Professor Don LaCasse, opens on September 6 and runs till September 23, 2012. (The poster image at right is from a Chicago workshop production of the play in 2011. A previous production at Chicago's Rivendell Theatre received Jeff Award nominations for the play, director and leading actress. ISU alum Kathy Logelin played the lead role when Rivendell revived the play later.)

Next up is the blazing art drama "Red," by John Logan, which began its life at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2009, before moving to Broadway and winning the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play. The play involves artist Mark Rothko and his assistant as they prepare canvases for New York's Four Seasons restaurant, with issues of artistic integrity played against monetary success and accolades. Illinois Wesleyan's Christopher Connelly will direct "Red," with performances from November 1 to 18, 2012.

Opening on Valentine's Day, Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still" is the first show in 2013 for Heartland. "Time Stands Still" involves a photojournalist who must decide whether she will return to a dangerous, exciting life spent on the front lines or stay where she is, in a more peaceful, comfortable place on the home front. ISU Professor Sandra Zielinski returns to Heartland to direct "Time Stands Still," which runs from February 14 to March 3, 2013.

And the last show on the schedule is Will Eno's "Middletown," which looks at extraordinary lives in Small Town, USA, over the course of a few very ordinary days. It's been compared to "Our Town," but I'd say "Middletown" is quirkier, more poetic, and a whole lot more surprising. "Middletown" received the Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play in 2010. ISU Professor Emeritus John Kirk will direct "Middletown" in performance from April 18 to May 5, 2013.

For more information on Heartland Theatre, you can visit the website here, with new information being added all the time.