THE LAST NIGHT
OF BALLYHOO
Written by Alfred Uhry
Directed by Jules Aaron
June 6 - June 22, 2008
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From The Production!
WINNER OF THE TONY AWARD FOR BEST PLAY!
It's December of 1939. Gone with the Wind storms the silver screen. Hitler invades Poland. But the biggest concern of Atlanta's Freitag family is Ballyhoo, a lavish ball for southern Jewish socialites. When Uncle Adolph brings Joe - his new, very eligible assistant - home for dinner, the romantic schemes begin. This comedy captures the same heartfelt warmth as the author's earlier success, Driving Miss Daisy.
The cast of THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO will feature Stacy Barnhisel as Lala, Ellen Crawford as Boo, Michele Marsh as Reba, Michael Rothhaar as Adolph, James Leo Ryan as Peachy, Gregory Sims as Joe and Kate Steele as Sunny.
THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO has assembled an award-winning design team. The set design is by John Iacovelli. Lighting design is by J. Kent Inasy. The sound design is by Josh Bessom. The costume design is by Richard Odle. The Production Stage Manager and Properties Designer is Terry Hanrahan.
ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM
ALFRED UHRY (Playwright) was born in 1936 to an upper-middle-class German-Jewish family in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a furniture designer and artist, and his mother was a social worker. He attended Brown University in Rhode Island, graduating with a degree in English in 1958.
Uhry had worked on varsity shows at Brown with Robert Waldman; Uhry wrote the script and lyrics, and Waldman wrote the music. After college, Uhry moved to New York to begin his career in show business, where he continued to collaborate with Waldman. Their musical, The Robber Bridegroom (1975), was based on a novella by southern writer Eudora Welty. Uhry wrote the script and the song lyrics. The play was a surprise hit Off-Broadway and moved to Broadway for the 1976-1977 season. It earned Uhry a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk nomination.
Uhry continued to work on other musicals, but these projects were unsuccessful, either closing on opening night, or soon thereafter, or never opening at all. Uhry began to write comedy scripts for television shows and lyrics for commercials and also taught English and drama at a New York high school. In 1984, as Uhry was struggling to get a musical about Al Capone off the ground, the idea came to him to write a play instead.
The characters in Driving Miss Daisy (1987) are based on people that Uhry knew growing up, including his grandmother and her African-American chauffeur. Driving Miss Daisy, Uhry’s first play, was an instant success, running for three years in New York. Uhry won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for it. Uhry also wrote the adaptation for the film version of this work.
After his surprise hit, Uhry was approached by the Olympic Games’ Cultural Olympiad to produce a play for the 1996 Olympic Games that would be held in Atlanta. He revisited Atlanta’s Jewish milieu that he knew so well to create his story about intra-ethnic prejudice. The Last Night of Ballyhoo went on to win Uhry another Tony Award. In 1998, he wrote the book for the musical Parade, which played at Lincoln Center in New York. It also had anti-Semitism as a central focus. Uhry most recently wrote the book to LoveMusik, based on the lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya.
Uhry lives in New York, where he is active in the Dramatists Guild. He also has served as an advisor to the Guild’s Young Playwrights Festival.
JULES AARON (Director) has directed more than 250 productions for stage and television and is the recipient of 18 Drama-Logue Awards, 3 Backstage Garland Awards, 4 Bay Area Theatre Awards, 3 LA Drama Critics Circle nominations and 1 LADCC Award for director. He has directed frequently at the Public Theater in New York, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, New Mexico Repertory, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Falcon Theatre, TheatreWorks and La Mirada Theatre of the Performing Arts. Jules has directed Bruce Davison, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore, Joan Van Ark, Billy Zane, and Mercedes Ruehl, among others. Most recently he directed Great Expectations, The Musical at the Hudson theatre Backstage and was the recipient of the Granada Chair at UC Davis where he directed Noises Off. He directed a benefit of The Last Night of Ballyhoo at the Wilshire Theatre and an acclaimed production of Caberet at ITC. He teaches at American Academy of Dramatic Art.
