Last year, during THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, renowned Artist Sol Schwartz created 5 illustrations of the cast during a live performance (and in his playbill from the show). Those pictures are now being exhibited in the lobby of New York City Center Stage II through the end of THE SNEEZE.

Sol Schwartz’s work has focused on the performing arts as they are being performed. Based in western Massachusetts, he has created and currently displays works at Tanglewood, Shakespeare & Company, and Barrington Stage Company.  Mr. Schwartz has produced a book “Drawing Music: The Tanglewood Sketchbook” and he is completing a book on drawing dance for Jacob’s Pillow.

Posted by Courtney Breslin, Audience Services Manager

After being Audience Services Manager for over a year now, I’ve come to know our subscribers very well.  I love seeing them show after show and checking in with them a few times a year to hear their recent stories and updates.  But sometimes, the best stories I hear come from our single ticket buyers who I may only see once a year.

At a recent performance of The Playboy of the Western World a young couple who were not subscribers came up to me to tell me that three years ago they had their first date at our old theatre on St. Mark’s Place.  I guess their date went very well because she was extremely happy to tell me that they were now engaged to be married! I was so excited to hear that and it makes me happy to think that maybe our productions had a tiny little bit to do with their happiness!

Keep the stories coming ticket buyers, I love to hear ‘em!

If you have a story like this to share please post it below or email it to info@pearltheatre.org.

We’re planning some special “date nights” for our next production, MISALLIANCE. More info to come soon–but we hope for more love connections at The Pearl.

By Bradford Cover

I have about an hour and a half between scenes in The Playboy of The Western World. I love our new space at City Center, but backstage there aren’t too many options for places to wait.  Between conversations with fellow actors, reading the paper online, and looking at my lines for Misalliance, I can hear Playboy going on over the monitors.  What a beautiful play.  I love hearing this talented cast doing it every night—making little changes and deepening things.

Bradford Cover as Michael James | Photo by Gregory Costanzo

As I sit and listen, it thrills me to hear the audience laugh at certain lines.   The play has a devilishly funny current running through it.  As the people of the village begin to worship Christy for his dire act, the audience’s delight sucks them into the story, and eventually makes them complicit in his crime.  Every night this carries the audience through the piece as Synge plays with this idea, and surprises the audience with plot twists, and different views of the event, so that the ending becomes quite personal to them.

Sean McNall as Christy Mahon | Photo by Gregory Costanzo

This process reminds me of the great gangster movies—Clockwork Orange, Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid to name a few.  Our capacity to love a criminal is endless, and primitive, and it says something about our basic existence.  We all long to break free from the rules that govern us, and to go out into the world — free.    Freedom is of course relative to what kind of rules one is used to dealing with.  In Western Ireland at the turn of the last century freedom means something quite different than it does to us Manhattan dwellers in the 21^st Century.  But I am so encouraged by that laughter.

Many years ago I knew a guy who didn’t like to play by the rules.  He fought against a conventional life all through school and well into his adulthood.  I just got word that he has recently settled down with a girlfriend, a house, a job, and a dog.  I called him to see if this was a change of heart, or if he felt he had given up.  He said simply that he was happy, and didn’t feel at all that he had given up, but was still fighting the good fight of freedom. He seemed so happy, but not at all complacent.   I think of him often as I listen to this play.  It makes me wonder if we are truly free by wearing the shackles we choose,  rather than those that are forced upon us.  Or is it that we will always yearn for a freer state of being, regardless of our circumstances, and this is what makes us human?

Bradford Cover is currently playing Michael James in The Pearl Theatre Company’s production of THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD. He has been a member of the Resident Acting Company at The Pearl since 1996.

PURCHASE TICKETS NOW for THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD!