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Berkeley Rep in the news: kudos and casting

posted by Bert Reptile on Mon, Jul 27, 2009
in Backstage buzz

We are delighted to report that in the East Bay Express Best of 2009, Berkeley Rep scored Best Theatrical Production for The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

Director Les Waters and his cast, designers and crew were lauded for doing an "amazing job with the hefty challenges of tech, timing, and tone that the play presents: thick Irish dialect, more than thirty gallons of blood flowing in each performance, incredibly realistic gunshots and blood spatters, an actor performing an entire scene while hanging from his feet, the grisly sight and sound of sawing body parts, and, most of all, making the whole thing funny."

Bloody good. Read the entire citation here.

Speaking of Les Waters, last season he also directed the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), which will be re-mounted on Broadway in October. A recent New York Times story revealed the cast of this Lincoln Center Theater production.

Maria Dizzia, who played the doctor's chief patient in the Berkeley Rep production, will reprise that role. The doctor will be played by Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd, The Who's Tommy) and his wife will be played by Tony-winner Laura Benanti (Gypsy).The cast will also include Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Wendy Rich Stetson, Chandler Williams, and Thomas Jay Ryan, who appeared at Berkeley Rep in Will Eno's TRAGEDY: a tragedy.

Read the entire story here.

Pictured above: Maria Dizzia (left)
and Hannah Cabell in In the Next Room.
photo courtesy of kevinberne.com