Tony Award Winning Stoppard Play "Travesties" Opens at Bay Street June 24

The Tony award winning comedy TRAVESTIES, written by Tom Stoppard, will be on stage at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor from June 24 to July 20. It is the second in the summer series of plays and marks the 40th anniversary of Travesties Broadway debut. It will be directed by Gregory Boyd.

Bay Street theater has continued its tradition of  a  “Pay What You Can” performance for the local community on opening night, Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm. “PWYC” tickets are limited and will be available at the Box Office beginning at 2 pm on June 24.

New this year, "Student Sunday Matinees": Every Sunday through July 20, High School and College students can receive (1) FREE admission for the 2pm performance of TRAVESTIES. Also new this year is a $30 ticket for those under the age of 30.  Photo ID must be shown for both ticket initiatives.

Returning this year is Talkback Tuesday with Bay Street’s new Artistic Director, Scott Schwartz, and members of the Travesties cast following the 7pm performance on Tuesday, July 1.

With Travesties, Stoppard creates a theatrical extravaganza with the wit of Oscar Wilde crashing headlong into song-and-dance, strip-tease, pie-fights, and brilliant wordplay. Set in 1917 and 1974 in Zurich, Switzerland, the play fantasizes how a British consul named Henry Carr (Richard Kind) encounters some of the most famous figures of the 20th century, including James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin, through an amateur production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Stoppard takes on the role of the artist in society in this exuberant and freewheeling comedy about art and revolution that is as fresh and thought-provoking as it is uproarious.

The cast includes Michael Benz (Downton Abbey, The Tempest) as Tristan Tzara, Carson Elrod (Person of Interest, Wedding Crashers) as James Joyce, Aloysius Gigl (Les Miserables, Sweeney Todd) as Bennett, Isabel Keating (The Boy from Oz, Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark) as Nadya, Richard Kind (Spin City, Curb Your Enthusiasm) as Henry Carr, Julia Motyka (Richard III, We Got Issues) as Gwendolen, Emily Trask (Twelfth Night, The Gaming Table) as Cecily, and Andrew Weems (Born Yesterday, Inherit the Wind) as Lenin.

Sir Tom Stoppard (playwright), born Tomáš Straussler; July 3, 1937, is a Czech-born British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He co-wrote the screenplays for Brazil, The Russia House, and Shakespeare in Love. Stoppard has received one Academy Award in addition to his four Tony Awards. Themes of human rights, censorship and political freedom pervade his work along with exploration of linguistics and philosophy. Stoppard has been a key playwright of the Royal National Theatre in London and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation.

Gregory Boyd (Director) is the Artistic Director of the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas. During his tenure, the Alley has risen in national and international prominence, The theatre has won the Special Tony Award and experienced record growth in its Houston audiences, while also taking its productions to major European Festivals (including two in one season at the Venice Biennale), Broadway, and on tour to 40 American cities.

 At the Alley, Boyd has produced over 100 new productions of the widest ranging repertoire in the country, among them the world premieres of Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams (Alley, London, Broadway), Jekyll & Hyde (Alley, National Tour, Broadway), and The Civil War (which he also co-wrote); Shakespeare’s Roman Plays (with Vanessa and Corin Redgrave); Robert Wilson’s productions of Hamlet, When We Dead Awaken and Danton’s Death (with Richard Thomas); O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Ellen Burstyn, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Parts 1 & 2, (both directed by Michael Wilson), premieres by Keith Reddin, Eve Ensler, Edward Albee, Horton Foote, Ken Lin, Rajiv Joseph and Theresa Rebeck. At the Alley, he has directed over 40 productions including: In the Jungle of Cities, Hapgood, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Cyrano de Bergerac, Treasure Island, Subject to Fits, After the Fall, and The Greeks. Boyd was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is a Distinguished Alumnus, and at Carnegie-Mellon. He is the recipient of an Outer Critics Circle Award, Connecticut Critics Circle Award, two Drama Desk nominations, two Tony Award nominations, and the Eisner Prize.

Travesties stars Richard Kind, an active member of Bay Street Theater’s Board of Trustees and a regular performer who has most recently appeared on its stage in Enter Laughing. His Broadway credits include, The Big Knife (Drama Desk Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor and nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play), The Producers; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Sly Fox; The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife; Sondheim’s Bounce! (Goodman Theatre and Kennedy Center), Candide (New York City Opera at Lincoln Center); The Lady in Question, and Rough Crossing.

The 2014 Mainstage Season is sponsored in part by New York State through the generosity of Assemblyman Fred Thiele and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle; the New York State Council on The Arts, a State Agency; Town of Southampton; The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust; The Shubert Foundation; and the Suffolk County Executive’s Office. Previews are to be sponsored by Peconic Landing.

Tickets are on sale now at the Box Office at 631-725-9500 or online at www.baystreet.org.