What happens when the equilibrium of a long-term
friendship is rocked by a divorce? Pulitzer-Prize
winner, DINNER WITH FRIENDS, explores that question
through laughter and wisdom in a play described by critics as
“…entertainment as succulent as it is sobering.”(New
York Magazine)
Gabe and Karen have it all: wonderful careers as
food writers, a comfortable Connecticut home, a summer house at Martha’s
Vineyard and Tom and Beth, their best friends. For
over twelve years the two couples have shared their lives over dinners,
vacations and through child rearing. All is well
in their worlds until a startling revelation: Tom and Beth’s marriage
is ending.
“It’s really about the aftershocks that we all experience
when certain constants in our lives, things that we perceive to be
constant, suddenly shatter and are no longer dependable,”
said playwright Donald Margulies in an interview on NPR. “There’s
humor in [the play],” said Margulies, “but I think
it also touches a nerve, and I think that’s one of the reasons why it has
had the
success it has had.” Since its premiere at the Humana
Festival at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, DINNER WITH FRIENDS has
received steady attention, earning raves from subsequent
productions at California’s South Coast Repertory, Off-Broadway’s
Variety Arts Theatre and in Paris.
Dinner With Friends earned the Pulitzer Prize in
2000, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, the
American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award,
The Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, and the Outer Critics
Circle Award.
Margulies’ work surfaced in the early 80s with the
Off-Broadway play, Found a Peanut. His career took off in 1992 when
Sight Unseen won an Obie for Best New American Play
and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Soon to follow was the regional
theatre favorite The Loman Family Picnic, and Collected
Stories, which earned him another Pulitzer Prize nomination.
Margulies has captured a slew of accolades throughout
his career including the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award,
Drama-Logue Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk nominations
and two Burns Mantle “Best Play” honors.
“Margulies writes about relationships with such intelligence
and spiky humor that his comedy-drama becomes something quite
wonderful.” (Time Magazine). Have some dinner with
your friends and check out this winner!
August 31-September 23. Previews August 29 and 30.
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and showtimes.
