Classic Stage Company has added a week to Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty, the first production directed by Steven Pasquale. The revival now runs through Sunday, November 29, at the company’s Lynn F. Angelson Theater, and its opening night stays on November 2.
The run had been scheduled to close on November 22. CSC, where Jill Rafson is producing artistic director, credits demand for the extra week, which it has announced before the show has even opened: the production is in previews now at 136 East 13th Street.
The new week carries one special performance. At the 2 p.m. matinee on Wednesday, November 25, the day before Thanksgiving, every seat is $66 including fees, a price the company describes as a thank-you to its audience.
Odets wrote the play in 1935 for the Group Theatre, and it made him the most talked-about American dramatist of the decade almost at once. It puts a group of Depression-era New York cab drivers in a union hall, arguing over whether to strike while they wait for a leader who has not arrived. Pasquale’s staging is built around music and movement: the original score and arrangements are by Yeller Tooth, the duo of Sahar Milani and Cameron Scoggins, and the choreography is by Susan Misner, whose screen work includes FX’s Fosse/Verdon.
Pasquale is a familiar face at CSC, where he appeared in Assassins, and on Broadway, where he starred in American Son. Milani and Scoggins also perform in the ten-strong company, alongside Tony nominee Tala Ashe (English), Raffi Barsoumian, Austin Durant, Greg Hildreth, Adam Kantor, Doireann Mac Mahon, Zach McNally and Henry Stram.
Sets are by Scott Adam Davis, costumes by Márion Talán de la Rosa, lighting by Mextly Couzin and sound by Palmer Hefferan. Buzz Cohen is the production stage manager.
Our earlier coverage of the run includes the first production photos, the $30 rush seats for union and guild members and the sit-ins and talkbacks on the labor movement scheduled around it.
Tickets for the extended run, including the November 25 matinee, are on sale here.
