Future Theater

 As I noted on Saturday, my current stage production has closed....and I am now left with little to fill my free time, unless one of two (or possibly both) things happens: I am cast in the production of The Three Musketeers I auditioned for last week (hoping for Richelieu or Captain Treville) or the production I have submitted to another theater is picked up for this season or early next.

That production is The Lion in Winter by James Goldman. You're probably familiar with the film version, starring Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, and a couple of very young actors in their earliest roles--Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton. The script for the film is a virtual copy of the stage version, with the exception of "opening up" the action to outside the walls of Chinon Castle and adding a lot of extras in the background.

The play is quite simple in its staging and very "theatrical", leaving much of the setting to the imaginations of the audience. It also has only seven characters--Henry II, Eleanor of Acquitaine (his wife), his three sons (Richard, Geoffrey, and John), his mistress, Alais (princess of France and, by treaty, betrothed to Henry's successor), and King Philip of France, Alais's younger brother.

I've wanted to direct it for many years.  I hope I finally get the chance.