Between Riverside and Crazy, a new New York-centric play by six-time Tony Award nominee Stephen Adly Guirgis, will open in July for a limited Off-Broadway engagement directed by Obie winner and Tony nominee Austin Pendleton. The world premiere production at the Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater will star, among others, Dominican native Victor Almanzar, Rosal Colón (Guirgis's The Motherf***er with the Hat) Stephen McKinley Henderson (the Tony-nominated revival of A Raisin in the Sun), and Elizabeth Canavan, who appeared in three plays by Guirgis at the Public Theater directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Almanzar, making his off-Broadway debut, has appeared in LAByrinth's NYNY Festival and at venues including Center Stage New York and Repertorio Espanol.
Guirgis's best-known play is probably the foul-mouthed The Motherf***er with the Hat, which Ben Brantley of the Times called a "vibrant and surprisingly serious new comedy" and which starred Chris Rock in his Broadway debut in 2011. The playwright's The Last Days of Judas Iscariot asked "What if Judas were made to stand trial for his betrayal of Jesus?"
Between Riverside and Crazy, Guirgis's newest work, concerns a widowed ex-cop and his recently paroled son trying to hang onto one of the few remaining rent-stabilized apartments on Manhattan's tony Riverside Drive.
Any old New York City hand knows someone who has, or had, a rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartment they just couldn't leave because it would be impossible to find anything affordable at market rates. It's a lingering remnant of the old New York City experiment in semi-socialism, but as they struggle with old wounds and new houseguests, Guirgis's protagonists find that the old days seem to be dead and gone.
Stephen Adly Guirgis is a member and former co-artistic director of LAByrinth Theater Company. Austin Pendleton recently directed Tribes in Chicago, where he is a Steppenwolf ensemble member. His Steppenwolf production of Lisa D'Amour's Detroit moved to London's National Theatre where it had an acclaimed run.
Between Riverside and Crazy begins previews July 10 and opens July 31 for a limited engagement through August 16.
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