NEXT TIME I’LL SING TO YOU [Dramatic Revival] A: James Saunders; D: Marian Seldes; C: John David Ridge; L: Joe Pacetti; P: City Center Acting Company; T: Good Shepherd-Faith Church (OB); 10/25/72-10/28/72 (2)
Note: No photos are available for this production.
English playwright James Saunders’s interesting play had
been done in New York in 1963, but was not as well appreciated as when it was
revived in this briefly seen production by the novice actors of the City Center
Acting Company in their first year as professionals. Their repertory troupe included
the play among six they offered on an alternating basis during a month’s
residency. Mel Gussow thought this “antic disputation on the meaning of theatre
and of life . . . to be one of the most fully realized and entertaining works
in the troupe’s repertory.”
Saunders’s play is about an author-director, Rudge (David
Schramm), and his circuitous attempts to guide a small group of actors through
a Pirandellian work about the loneliness of an English hermit who died in his
80s but left behind a diary, It was well played by the promising cast. However, Patti LuPone gained the
greatest recognition for her ability “as a comic actress with enormous personal
flair,” according to Gussow. LuPone and Schramm shared the performance with Benjamin Hendrickson, Norman Snow, and Jared Sakren.
The show returned as part of the company’s second season in
New York, opening on 1/2/74 and giving another two performances in repertory
with four other plays. The cast remained the same.
