Revolutionary Moments
The Century Association, New York City
March 19, 2012
By Tina Packer and Cecelia Raker
Produced and revised by Gordon Hyatt
Directed by Dennis Krausnick
Also featuring John Lithgow, Merwin Goldsmith, Sonya Hamlin, Matthew Rauch, Meryl Streep, Thomas L. Rindge, Alexandra Isles, Dennis Krausnick, and Jane Alexander
Roles: The Prince of Morocco, Ira Aldridge, and Nelson Mandela
Ulysses on Bottles
Israeli Stage, Goethe Institut Boston
November 18, 2012
By Gilad Evron
Directed by Guy Ben-Aharon
Also featuring Jeremiah Kissel, Samuel Dinnar, Will Lyman, and Karen MacDonald
Role: Ulysses
As Ulysses, with Seinfeld (Will Lyman) of the Defense Ministry (PHOTO: Q Fotos)
As Ulysses, with his lawyer Saul Izakov (Jeremiah Kissel) (PHOTO: Q Fotos)
Critical Response
“It’s a staged reading, but what a cast—Jeremiah Kissel, Karen MacDonald, Will Lyman, and Johnny Lee Davenport.”
—Ed Siegel, Preview for WBUR, November 15, 2012
“The American premiere featured an embarrassment of riches with Jeremiah Kissel, Johnny Lee Davenport, Will Lyman, and Karen MacDonald, all Elliot Norton Award-winners, and Samuel Dinnar rounding out the cast.”
—Nancy Grossman, Broadwayworld.com, November 24, 2012
“Despite being a staged reading with scripts still in hand, the members of the ensemble were already comfortably inhabiting their roles, striking just the right balance between the tragic and comic dimensions of their characters. Johnny Lee Davenport muscularly embodied Ulysses’s hypomanic reveries about literature as well as his despair facing the indignities of prison.”
—Ian Thal, Arts Fuse, December 4, 2012
A Little Calm Before the Storm
Goethe Institut Boston
December 2, 2012
By Theresia Walser
Directed by Guy Ben-Aharon
Also featuring Jeremiah Kissel and Ted Hewlett
Role: Franz Prächtel
With castmates Ted Hewlett and Jeremiah Kissel and playwright Theresia Walser (PHOTO: Q Fotos)
Critical Response
“Though it was a reading, Johnny Lee Davenport and Jeremiah Kissel invested their roles with the kind of detail that recalls how actors interact with each other before the house opens. The pair had just performed opposite one another two weeks before in another reading under Ben-Aharon’s direction, and they clearly relished their working relationship. Davenport is appropriately larger than life as Prächtel, a man who is more at home on a large proscenium stage than posing for a film close-up. Kissel’s nimble comic timing is well-suited for the role of Söst, a mass of contradictions who recognizes himself as a mass of contradictions.”
—Ian Thal, Arts Fuse, December 22, 2012
Shoe Shine Safari
The Huntington Theatre Company
2012-2013 Breaking Ground Reading Series
Boston Center for the Arts
Carol G. Deane Hall, Calderwood Pavilion
December 11, 2012
Written by John Oluwole ADEkoje
Directed by Niegel Smith
Also featuring Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Uzo Aduba, James Milord, Robert Murphy, Stephen Tyrone Williams, Reg Cathey, Rock Kohfi, Libby McKnight
Roles: Driver and Father
