For Immediate Release
January 13, 1999
Contact: Caitlin Barile
(202) 518-9400 (x229)

Theater J Scores Coup With Rights to Mamet's Latest!

"THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD"

Following its recent, critically-hailed run on Broadway, David Mamet's The Old Neighborhood will receive its U.S. regional premiere with a limited engagement at Theater J in Washington D.C. Previews begin February 6th with performances running through March 7th. A break-through work from one of America's most influential dramatists, Mamet's newest play tells the story of Bobby Gould who returns home in the wake of his mother's death to reconnect with what remains of his family.

"We're lucky to get this play," says Theater J Artistic Director, Ari Roth, "and we feel honored as well. Honored because this is an important play in Mamet's body of work, his most autobiographically revealing play to date, full of nostalgia, misgiving and hope. It's also an important play from a Jewish perspective as we finally recognize David Mamet as a writer who feels at home dramatizing explicitly Jewish issues in the same lively way he's dramatized the world of card sharks and real estate hustlers."

The Old Neighborhood originally starred Peter Riegert as Bobby Gould (a frequent Mamet alter-ego who's appeared as a character in Speed The Plow and Bobby Gould In Hell) and Patty LuPone in the pivotal role of Jolly, a character based largely on Mamet's sister, Lynn Mamet, who last year told The New York Times, "it was as if David had replayed six or eight of our phone conversations and put them on stage." For Theater J, the role of Jolly will be played by Helen Hayes Award nominated actress, Paula Gruskiewicz (last seen in Theater J's production of Waiting For Lefty/Still Waiting), with the role of Deenie, originally played by Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pigeon, portrayed by Lefty alum, Julie Ann Mendez. The production reunites the actresses with Waiting For Lefty's inventive director, Shira Piven (sister of ABC-TV's "Cupid" star Jeremy Piven) who last year directed Speed The Plow for Mike Nichols at the New Actors Workshop in New York. John Zibell, who played Gould in Piven's production of Speed The Plow, continues his exploration in the lead role of Bobby. Rounding out the cast is Washington stage veteran Tim Carlin and American University faculty member Christopher Wolfe.

The production marks the culmination of Theater J's three play series set on the South Side of Chicago, Mr. Mamet's birthplace. "The Old Neighborhood of the title," notes Roth, "is the same neighborhood we examined in Louis Rosen's 'The South Side: Racial Transformation of an American Neighborhood.' And it's the same neighborhood that's conjured in the memory sequences of Goodnight Irene. Mamet, Louis and I grew up ten blocks from each other, albeit that we were each born in a different decade. Our memories are still rooted in the same soil. I think that may be one reason why Mamet's publishers gave us permission to do the play. We were karmic neighbors. That gave us a special in."

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