Soprano Renée Fleming, always willing to take artistic risks and branch out as a performer, will make her acting debut in a play this summer. She will play diva Raquel De Angelis in the world premiere of Living on Love at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.
Fleming has acted before--she participated in comedy sketches during The Second City Guide to the Opera, a joint production between Lyric Opera of Chicago and The Second City comedy troupe. But this production of Living on Love, scheduled to run July 16 through 26, marks her acting debut in a play.
Living on Love, a comedy by Tony award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro, is based on Garson Kanin's play Peccadillo.
DiPietro's new comedy describes the power struggles between Raquel De Angelis and her husband, the famous conductor Vito De Angelis. When Vito becomes enamored with the lovely young lady hired to ghostwrite his autobiography, Raquel retaliates by hiring her very own--and very handsome--ghostwriter to chronicle her life as an opera star. As the young writers try to keep themselves out of the story while churning out chapters, the high-energy--and high-maintenance--power duet of husband and wife threatens to fall out of tune for good.
Veteran Broadway actor Douglas Sills (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Little Shop of Horrors) will play Vito De Angelis.
Tony award-winner Kathleen Marshall will direct the production, which also includes stage, TV and film actors Anna Chlumsky (In the Loop, Veep), Blake Hammond (First Date, Sister Act), Justin Long (WTF's One Slight Hitch, Seminar) and Scott Robertson (Cabaret, Damn Yankees).
More information about the Williamstown Theatre Festival is available at wtfestival.org, and in this high-energy festival preview:
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