The Mission of Theater Previews at Duke
Theater Previews at Duke is the professional producing arm of the Duke Department of Theater Studies. A laboratory for the professional development and production of new plays and musicals on Duke's campus, Theater Previews gives students opportunities to intern with playwrights, composers, actors, directors, designers, managers, and technicians and to participate in the creation of a new work of theater. Guest professionals from all over the country converge on campus to write, develop, and rehearse the works in progress.
Our most recent project was The Great Game by D. Tucker Smith. Theater Previews co-produced the play with Broadway producers Randall Wreghitt, Jana Robbbins, Joel and Phyllis Ehrlich and Brian and Jackie Steele. Tony-nominated Wilson Milam (for The Lieutenant of Inishmore) directed. Rehearsals began January 16, 2007, and performances were February 14-March 4, 2007.
An epic play of espionage, discrimination, hidden identities and romance, at its core The Great Game explores the dynamics that arise between dominant, global powers. The Great Game takes place as Imperialist England and Russia battle for control of Central Asia while dark-skinned Safia battles for acceptance in a new country where appearances are everything. In an eerie parallel to the geopolitics of today, the strategic importance of Afghanistan and Pakistan is at the crux of conflict, driven by greed and a deep-rooted disrespect for the world's diversity of cultures, national origins, and right of self-rule.
Origins
Emanuel Azenberg, a Tony-award-winning producer, and playwright Neil Simon were instrumental in bringing professional theater to Duke in the mid-1980s and in helping Duke develop and formalize the student internship program associated with it. The internships provide students with first-hand experience working in all aspects of a professional production. All Duke undergraduates are welcome to apply for these Internships.Through Theater Previews at Duke, the Theater Studies Department supports the development of new work for the American theater. Currently Theater Previews produces one mainstage production in February or March in R.J. Reynolds Industries Theater at Duke. A developmental production by an emerging playwright is produced every spring as part of Department of Theater Studies' annual festival of new plays.
Theater Previews at Duke extends the work begun by the Broadway Preview series, which premiered new works for the American theater from 1986-1993 at Duke.
The first Broadway Preview performance staged in the Reynolds Industries Theater (March 10, 1986) was Emanuel Azenberg's Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, starring Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey. Some of the other productions previewed at Duke are: Broadway Bound and Laughter on the 23rd Floor by Neil Simon; A Month of Sundays with Jason Robards; A Walk in the Woods with Sam Waterston; Metamorphosis with Mikhail Baryshnikov; The Circle with Rex Harrison; Artist Descending a Staircase by Tom Stoppard; and Lucifer's Child with Julie Harris.
Theater Previews at Duke continues the work of the Broadway Preview series. The most recent mainstage production was the Spring 2005 theatrical concert reading of Gore Vidal's On the March to the Sea, starring Michael Learned, Charles Durning, and Chris Noth. In the fall of 2004, Little Women - the Musical was developed at Duke and had a successful three-week run on its way to the Virginia Theatre on Broadway.
Other mainstage productions have included Kudzu, a new musical based on the popular cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Marlette; Eleanor: An American Love Story, a musical based on Eleanor Roosevelt's early life; and Birdy, a play adapted by Naomi Wallace from the 1978 novel by William Wharton. The 2001 production, A Thousand Clowns by Herb Gardner and starring Tom Selleck, played to sold-out audiences at Duke before touring to Chicago and Boston and opening on Broadway in July 2001. Paper Doll by Mark Hampton and Barbara J. Zitwer, directed by Leonard Foglia, and starring Marlo Thomas and F. Murray Abraham, followed in 2002.
The most recent workshop production was Ariel Dorfman's Purgatorio in Winter 2005, which played in Reynolds Theater. A professional workshop of Some Things That Can Go Wrong at 35,000 Ft. by John Orlock and directed by Michael Parva played at Sheafer Theater in Spring 2004. Other developmental productions have included new works by Nilo Cruz, José Rivera, and Tina Landau, and Little Women - The Musical in workshop form.
Professional Affiliations
Theater Previews is a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the nonprofit professional theatre and a member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. Theater Previews operates under agreements with Actors' Equity Association (the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States) and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (an independent national labor union).
Questions about Theater Previews at Duke should be directed to Theater Studies Department Chair John Clum at jclum@duke.edu.
