By George Gershwin, Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin; adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre L. Murray; scenic design, Riccardo Hernandez; costume design, Esosa; lighting design, Christopher Akerlind; sound design, ACME Sound Partners; orchestrators, William David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke; music supervisor, David Loud; conductor, Sheila Walker; associate conductor, Brian Hertz; associate director/production stage manager, Nancy Harrington; choreographer, Ronald K. Brown; director, Diane Paulus
Cast in order of appearance:
Clara, Nikki Renee Daniels; Mariah, NaTasha Yvette Williams; Frazier, the Crab Man, Cedric Neal; Lily, Heather Hill; Jake, Joshua Henry; Mingo, the Undertaker, J.D. Webster; Sporting Life, David Alan Grier; Robbins, Nathaniel Stampley; Serena, Bryonha Marie Parham; Porgy, Norm Lewis; Crown, Phillip Boykin; Bess, Audra McDonald; Peter, the Honey Man, Phumzile Sojola; Detective, Christopher Innvar; Policeman, Joseph Dellger; Strawberry Woman, Andrea Jones-Sojola; Fishermen, Roosevelt Andre Credit, TrevonDavis, Wilkie Fergunson; Women of Catfish Row, Allison Blackwell, Alicia Hall Moran, Lisa Nicole Wilkerson
Performances and Tickets: Now through October 2, American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.), Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass. Tickets begin at $25 and are available online at www.AmericanRepertoryTheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at 617-547-8300. Production begins previews on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on December 17 with an official opening set for January 12, 2012. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.
Dear Mr. Sondheim. It ain't necessarily so. While purists, pundits, preservationists and scholars may have qualms about the revised production of The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess which had its official pre-Broadway press opening at the A.R.T. in Cambridge, Mass. on August 31, mere mortals who have no preconceived notions of how the work "should" be presented are in for a thrilling night of musical theater. Powerful, imaginative, and gloriously cast, this intimate yet soaring Porgy and Bess is both timeless and full of life.
The creative team of Diane Paulus (director), Suzan-Lori Parks (writer), and Diedre L. Murray (composer) has refashioned Porgy and Bess not as an opera, which has become the standard way of presenting the piece over the years, but as a more traditional book musical. To accomplish this, they have eschewed much of the score's operatic recitative in favor of spoken dialogue. They have also emphasized more of the jazz, gospel, and blues influences in the Gershwin score. The result is a wonderfully dynamic and moving production that rivets attention on the joys, sorrows, struggles and, ultimately, simple heroism of its damaged and unlikely lovers of the title.
