Guthrie to celebrate Christopher Hampton in Fall 2012


Joe Dowling and Christopher Hampton (Photo by Heidi Bohnenkamp)

GUTHRIE THEATER TO CELEBRATE WORK OF
BRITISH PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON IN 2012


Theater's 50th anniversary season to open with three-play celebration, including a Guthrie commission of Appomattox alongside two of Hampton's other works 

 

(Minneapolis/St. Paul) Director Joe Dowling today announced that the Guthrie Theater will kick off its 50th anniversary season with a three-play celebration of prolific British playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton, whose adaptation of Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning comedy God of Carnage is playing on the Theater's McGuire Proscenium Stage through August 7, 2011. A Guthrie commission of Appomattox, a new play based on his original 2007 opera collaboration with composer Philip Glass, will be presented in the fall of 2012 alongside two of Hampton's other works, the titles of which will be announced at a later date.

Appomattox deals with the final week of the Civil War and the immediate aftermath of the treaty signed in April 1865, while also considering the fact that 100 years later, the root cause of the Civil War, the suppression of one race by another, had still not been satisfactorily addressed and is still, to this day, a more than contentious issue.

"Since the end of our successful Tony Kushner Celebration in 2009, our audiences have been eagerly awaiting this announcement," said Dowling. "Christopher is an exciting, informative and innovative writer, and a supreme stylist of his generation. The wonderful theatricality and witty banter of his work will offer our audiences the same potential for discussion and engagement that they so enjoyed in our celebration of Tony."

"I have had great relations with the Guthrie and Minneapolis since the days of Garland Wright," said Hampton, "and eagerly look forward to revisiting two of my earlier plays, as well as premiering a new play, which will be my first on an entirely American theme."

The Guthrie's unprecedented 2009 celebration of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner featured productions on all three stages, including his much talked about world premiere The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (which recently concluded its New York run), the critically-acclaimed musical Caroline, or Change, and an evening of short plays, dubbed Tiny Kushner, which went on to play at Berkeley Rep in 2009 and London's Tricycle Theatre in 2010.

Full details of the 2012 Christopher Hampton Celebration will be announced at a later date.