David Auburn's LOST LAKE Finds Itself in Manhattan Next Season

Last month, we saw the inaugural production of the "Sullivan Project," an initiative within the University of Illinois Department of Theatre to workshop new plays. The Sullivan in question is Daniel Sullivan, a prominent Broadway director who is also the Swanlund Endowed Chair and a professor of theatre at U of I. Sullivan's choice to start this project was Lost Lake, a new play by David Auburn, someone Sullivan had worked with before. Proof, also by Auburn, earned Sullivan a Tony as best director back in 2001.

Auburn was in Urbana in January to revise and rework his script as he saw how it played out with Sullivan at the helm and New York actors Jake Weber and Opal Alladin inhabiting the two characters in the play. Weber played Hogan, a scruffy man with a messy past and an even messier cabin, while Alladin was Veronica, a woman from the city who'd rented his cabin by a lake. How the two attempted to move forward through the murky waters in their lives formed the plot of the play. The result was an intriguing, if somewhat uneven Lost Lake, one with all kinds of promise, but some plot issues less than successfully resolved for me.

At the time, I thought that the role of manipulative, charming, infuriating Hogan would be catnip for actors of a certain age, while Veronica was less fully developed. Alladin looked beautiful and did great work with what she had, but there were some twists written into the script that just didn't work, and the balance between the characters was off. At a talkback after the performance I saw, Sullivan talked about how much Auburn had changed who this woman was and what her revelations were during the process, and it seemed clear that Lost Lake was still a work in progress.

The production certainly looked finished, however. Tucked inside the Studio Theatre at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Lost Lake had the benefit of a first-rate set, as scenic designer J. Michael Griggs established the rustic, mysterious lake cabin as a legitimate third character for Hogan and Veronica to play off.

I wondered where Lost Lake was headed after its Urbana workshop, and I asked that question during the talkback I attended. Sullivan indicated that it was very much up in the air, and that if it did move on to another production of some sort, he wasn't at all sure that he would be attached to it.

Was that just a case of hedging bets till plans were set? I don't know. But I do know that the New York Times reported last week that Lost Lake, with Sullivan at the helm, will be part of Manhattan Theatre Club's 2014-15 season. Sullivan will also direct The Country House, a new play by Donald Margulies that precedes Lost Lake on the schedule. In what is being called its world premiere, Lost Lake is set to begin previews at the New York City Center Stage on October 21 and open on November 11, 2014.

No word on whether Weber or Alladin will take on Hogan and Veronica again. I hope so. They braved Central Illinois in January and they ought to get something for their efforts!

THE SULLIVAN PROJECT Blends Daniel Sullivan, David Auburn and Jake Weber

Daniel Sullivan

Illinois Theatre, a producing arm of the University of Illinois Department of Theatre, is shedding some light on "The Sullivan Project," a theater event scheduled for a week of performances in early February.

The Department of Theatre at U of I had previously announced that this would be the inaugural year of the Sullivan Project, named for Daniel Sullivan, who is the Swanlund Endowed Chair and a Professor of Theatre at U of I Urbana-Champaign. He is also a one of New York's most in-demand directors, a Tony Award winner for his direction of Proof, by David Auburn, and a Tony nominee for directing plays like Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, The Sisters Rosensweig by Wendy Wasserstein, and a 2011 production of The Merchant of Venice. Other than the fact that Sullivan would be at the helm, details were scant. All we knew was that this Sullivan Project would "gather professional artists from across the country to produce a new play."

Now we know that the new play in question is called Lost Lake and it was written by David Auburn. A press release sent out today tells us, "The latest work from the author of Proof, which received both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Broadway’s Tony Award, Lost Lake was developed by the author in a residency funded by Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference in the summer of 2013 (Preston Whiteway, Executive Director; Wendy C. Goldberg, Artistic Director).

"In Lost Lake, Veronica, who lives in New York City, finds herself at a crossroads in life and decides to offer her children a respite from city life in a ramshackle cabin far from the distractions of her urban milieu. When she leases a vacation home, she meets Hogan, the property owner who is facing challenges of his own—challenges that will have an impact on Veronica’s chances of time away from it all."

Jake Weber

We also have some excellent casting news. Jake Weber, someone I saw turn in a terrific performance in a terrific production of Tom Stoppard's Hapgood at the Williamstown Theater Festival last summer, who is perhaps better known for playing the hot husband in TV's Medium, will play Hogan, the challenged "property owner," while Opal Alladin will take the role of Veronica. Alladin appeared in the movie United 93 as well as an October episode of The Michael J. Fox Show, and she has extensive stage credits, including Romeo and Juliet for New York's Public Theater, Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia and Anne Marie Healy's What Once We Felt as part of a new play initiative from Lincoln Center.

Opal Alladin

Weber and Alladin share an Alan Ayckbourn connection, since she was in Ayckbourn's My Wonderful Day in Philadelphia, and he played all five Rivetti brothers in a Broadway production of A Small Family Business at the Music Box Theatre.

Scenic designer J. Michael Griggs joins costume designer James Berton Harris, a longtime U of I professor as well as a prominent costume designer with credits on both coasts, lighting designer Robert Perry and Bradford Chapin, a sound designer and audio engineer who has designed several productions with Illinois Theatre, on the design team.

Rehearsals begin next week in Urbana, with performances of Lost Lake scheduled for February 5-9 at 7:30 pm and 2 pm matinees on the 8th and 9th. For ticket information, click here.