WENDY WASSERSTEIN, A GREAT LOSS; JOHN CARIANI'S ALMOST MAINE; DIRECTOR JACK HOFSISS; NIGHTLIFE HAS ITS REWARDS; MORE
by Ellis Nassour

Wendy Wasserstein, an uncommon woman among others, left us much too early. She was only 55. As one of our best-loved, best-liked and best-known women playwrights, her unique voice will be missed; and onstage, too.

She was literally at the top of her game from the time she left Yale School for Drama and began her New York career in 1977 with Glenn Close, Jill Eikenberry and Swoosie Kurtz starring in her play about the aspirations of college women, Uncommon Women Among Others.

The dialogue was of the moment - sharp, bitchy, smart and witty. That was the case again in 1989 when Wasserstein's best-known play, The Heidi Chronicles, the story of an art history professor, played by Joan Allen [Cynthia Nixon and later Sarah Jessica Parker were in the cast], in the midst of an emotional crisis, was produced by Playwrights Horizons [later moving to Broadway] and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and, in a first for a solo female playwright, the Tony Award.

Her 1992 The Sisters Rosensweig, which starred Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn and then unknown Frances McDormand; and her hit 1983 Off Broadway Isn't It Romantic at Playwrights Horizons starring Barbara Barrie [it later transferred to the Lortel, starring Betty Comden - yes, that Betty Comden]; and her sole Hollywood credit, the 1988 off-beat The Object of My Affection, about a woman's intense attraction to a gay man [it starred Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd] had her now-famous balance of drama and humor.

Wasserstein often noted the lack of women playwrights as role models when she was coming up the ranks. Her mother, a dancer herself, instilled an early love for ballet and Wasserstein was enrolled in classes. She worked hard, she said, because the "dessert" was her parents taking her to a Saturday matinee. A grandfather performed and wrote for Yiddish theater. But she wasn't pushed into show business.

In a speech at a 1993 Baltimore fundraiser, she joked, "Mother never said, 'Darling, please grow up to be a playwright and put off marriage as much as possible!'"She said in a New Yorker interview that "being the youngest of four siblings in a family of of very large personalities, humor became my niche, my defense mechanism." Her plays were ripe with sharp, pointed humor but also deep poignancy.

Wasserstein said she was blessed in how "the doors opened for me" and that she was determined to give something back.

She frequently spoke in public schools for the American Theatre Wing and the Theatre Development Fund [TDF], but she wanted to take mentoring a step further. In conjunction with TDF, she started a program with high school seniors that was initially called Wendy's Project. As it evolved and grew, it became known as Open Doors.

"My philosophy," she said, "what I've always believed is just as we have the inalienable right to ride the subway, it's our birthright to go to the theatre. Why grow up in New York and not go?"

Her goal was to see if theater could be as relevant to them as sports, boom boxes and video games.

"I asked TDF to find me eight smart high school students and I'd personally take them to plays for a year. I wanted students who've never gone to professional theater. Basically, I saw it as a way of developing new audiences and instilling a love of theater. Maybe even developing new playwrights."

Schools and teacher contacts were chosen. "It was the teacher's responsibility," explained Wasserstein, "to select bright, verbal and reliable students who were willing to risk entering a world they had little knowledge of."

To narrow the list to manageable groups, selected students were asked to do a qualifying essay on what they expected from the experience.

"I was amazed at the interest," said Wasserstein. "The kids came from all walks of life, all economic levels. Most were seniors who had a prime interest in math and science. However, they had never gone to the theater and had no pulsating desire to persue it professionally."

The first group came from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, and the first show was the Public's revival of On the Town.

After performances, there were 90-minute discussions over pizza and soda. Over the course of the year, the students keep a journal to document, expand and reflect on their experience.

"It became a wonderful experience for us," Wasserstein reported. "Listening to the kids talk about the plays really reinvigorated my work. I saw that what we do [in theater] has an effect on them. Students who are looking for careers saw there's passion in our work and that you can love what you do to make a living. Best of all, of course, Open Doors created a desire to go to the theater. "

Quickly, the program expanded to nearly 20 groups and many of Wasserstein's devoted friends came aboard, including Hal Prince, William Finn, James Lapine, Graciela Daniele, Kathleen Marshall, Lar Lubovitch, Scott Ellis and journalists Frank Rich and Alex Witchel.

Over the last several years, as she suffered from a series of illnesses [the latest being leukemia], she quietly disappeared from the scene.

Third, produced last year at LCT, was her last New York staging; but a not-so-thinly autobiographical play, Welcome To My Rash, recounting all the symptoms she was suffering, appeared on the bill with it in a D.C. staging.

JOHN CARIANI TOUTED AS NEW ENGLAND WOODY ALLEN

Can the clean, wintry air of the uppermost reaches of Maine be the cure for the common cold or migraine headaches? Actor, now playwright John Cariani believes so. In his whimsical romantic comedy Almost, Maine, where under the spell of the Northern Lights the residents of a small town [called, naturally Almost] are falling head over heels, literally, in and out of love at an alarming rate, it's a midwinter night's dream!

He's receiving excellent audience response at Off Broadway's Daryl Roth Theatre, and some interesting accolades. One reviewer called him "the New England Woody Allen," praise Cariani says he hopes he can live up to.

Cariani made his Broadway debut as eccentric Motel the tailor in the 2004 revival of Fiddler On the Roof . He received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor. He's acted in James Lapine's Modern Orthodox [replacing Jason Biggs] and in Central Park in the Public/NYSF revival of Galt MacDermot and John Guare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, might be best known to the masses for his portrayal of forensics technician Beck, on TV's Law & Order.

Almost, Maine, directed by Gabriel Barre, features the fastest quick changes [one-upped only by the actors in Forbidden Broadway] and the hardest working actors in the business - even if they are in a New England slow-motion mode as opposed to a quick-paced New York one.
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The excellent ensemble is made up of Todd Cerveris [Michael's brother], Justin Hagan, Miriam Shor [most recently seen in Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams], Finnerty Steeves and two very busy understudies, Patrick Noonan and Colleen Quinian, who do the set changes.

Yes, he admits, Cariani is a proud Maine native and the sketches in Almost Maine about the quirky, love-smitten natives he knew or heard about began to germinate there over a decade ago.

After graduation from college in Massashusetts, he did an internship at a theatre there "where I did everything from take classes from The Acting Company to clean the toilets." After a couple of years there, the artistic director told him, basically, "Go West, young man" or to Chicago or New York, "the three places where, hopefully, you can make a living doing this sort of thing." Cariani, along with eight others, chose the latter.

He found it wasn't so easy. The six-foot, rail-thin actor worked at a gym. "The first thing everybody would say is that I didn't look the personal trainer type," he laughs, "and I wasn't I worked in billing."

In spite of his lack of bulk, he got roles in such films as Scotland, PA and Kissing Jessica Stein and on the quirky TV series Ed, where he played a resident of Stuckeyville.

NBC began an innovative program at downtown's Here, called Performance Space, where the network hope to discover comedians and good sit-com material. "I was asked if I'd be interested in a couple of Monday nights now and then to put up funny material. I said, ëI'll try it.'" His stories about the quirky characters he'd known and heard about in Maine went over well.

They were taped, reviewed by the network, who owned the material for a specific period until they decided how they wanted to proceed. "They didn't wish to proceed with me," say Cariani.

By 2002, when the material was whittled down from 24 stories to the present nine sketches loosely connected by a prologue and epilogue, he workshopped Almost, Maine at the Cape Cod Theatre Project and a premiere production at Portland [Maine, of course] Stage Theatre.

There were four actors playing 19 characters. "When the cast took their bows, it always astonished audiences that only four actors played all those roles."

Then came FOTR, for which he also won an Outer Critics Circle Award for Featured Actor. He laughs, "I wasn't even nominated by Drama Desk, so I learned about awards pretty quickly."

He says he "grew up a lot with Fiddler. It was something I was so proud of. There were so many revelations in it [thanks to David Leveaux' directorial interpretation] and I found it quite moving; but you could feel New York turn on it. I guess the show is so set in people's minds, that they don't want you to try anything different.

"We're all still pretty sad," he continues, "about some of the critical beating we got [for the show, supposedly, not being "Jewish" enough - how it could have been more "Jewish" beats the heck out of me!]. Some of us feel responsible."

Responsible? In what way? "Because, even though we know we tried to do something interesting, we feel we let audiences down."

Hopefully, with the sublime audience response to Almost, Maine, Cariani will, in the words of Cher to Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, will snap out of it. FOTR may have "let down" a couple of critics and then others started jumped on that bandwagon; but it played almost two years and over 780 performances.

"When I came to New York," says the actor/playwright, "everything I saw was about New Yorkers or celebrated New York. I wanted to do something to celebrate Maine.

Anita Stewart, the artistic director of Portland Stage, told me how difficult it had become to find new material here that would appeal to their audiences. That's why the regionals are so busy cultivating new writers, because they're not being cultivated here."

As Cariani greeted friends and audience members after a recent performance of Almost, Maine, he was ecstatic hearing the positive comments. "A lot of folks told me my play would never fly in New York," he said softly, "because it's about, well, Maine. And, sure enough, some of the critics have said that. But audiences love it. It's Off Broadway, at prices even younger audiences can afford. It's a great date play!"

[FOTR Photo: JOAN MARCUS; Production shot: CAROL ROSEGG]

JACK HOFSISS' REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

"Curtain up, light the lights," wrote Sondheim in Gypsy's showstopping "Everything's Coming Up Roses." "You got nothing to hit but the heights." In fact, in theater, the journey to the heights is fraught with trials, tribulations and reversals of fortune.

Because of the vagaries of the business, even Tony Award winners and, in this case, critically-acclaimed director Jack Hofsiss, wonder what their next job will be.

As we have seen show people, such as Chita Rivera, after her horrendous automobile accident which left her with 16 screws in her left leg, even in worst-case scenarios, have amazing resilience. No doubt or difficulty is so great that it cannot be overcome.

Hofsiss was the 1979 Tony-winning director of Best Play The Elephant Man. He says, with a laugh now, that he really put that philosophy to test.

... .... .... .... ................. .... ... ... ..TonTToTony-winning director Jack Hofsiss>

He's Off Broadway directing Steven Fales' Confessions of a Mormon Boy [which won the Overall Excellence Award in the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival] at the Soho Playhouse on Vandam Street, where it opens on Sunday.

Hofsiss, prior to his Broadway directorial debut was quite active Off Broadway, working with Joe Papp and the Public in the mid-70s, the original The Elephant Man Off Broadway and as a staging consultant to Barry Manilow for his 1976 Broadway bow.

For directing Elephant Man, Hofsiss not only won the Tony but a host of other honors. Then, in summer 1985, after directing operas and the TV adaptation of EM [winning a Directors Guild Award and Emmy nomination], on an afternoon when he took everyone's advice and decided to relax and go swimming, he fractured his spinal cord as he dove into the pool.

The accident left him dependent on a wheelchair and "totally chilled down my career."

While still in hospital, he got one job offer, which didn't work out. "But it was very satisfying to know someone wanted me, without knowing what I'd be capable of. That gave me hope."

It was an empty hope, as it turned out, because there were no other job offers. It was as if everyone forgot what he'd accomplished. For a year, he says, "while trying to figure out how to go on with my life, I wondered if anyone would hire me."

In March 1986 he was finally released. He got a job that July directing All the Way Home at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. "It was the story of a man in an automobile accident," he states with a smile, "and how his family dealt with the issues. The subject matter was as therapeutic as getting back to work."

Landing jobs was still a struggle. "But," he says, "friends, like [the late] Josephine Abady, who offered me the Berkshire job, believed in me."

That led to the one-night-only [and seven previews] of 1983's Total Abandon, starring Richard Dreyfuss.

In 1987, he was back in the theatrical eye Off Broadway, directing the musical No Way To Treat A Lady, which garnered good reviews and became a modest hit. It led to helming Circle in the Square's revival the following year of The Shadow Box, which featured an all-star cast: Estelle Parsons, Mercedes Ruehl, Marlo Thomas, Frankie Faison and Mary Alice.

He went on to be a creative consultant on the short-lived A Mom's Life, a one-woman show originally produced by Joe Papp at the Public, later that year; to direct Roundabout's 1991 revival of The Subject Was Roses; and work at Manhattan Theatre Club and with JoAnne Akalaitis, the Public's artistic director after Papp.

In 1997, the New Group's 1997 gay comedy My Night with Reg, starring Maxwell Caulfield and then unknowns Sam Trammell and Edward Hibbert, garnered quite a bit of attention and audience members with binoculars because of it's full-frontal nudity.

In 2000, there was Avow Off Broadway, starring Alan Campbell, in his first post-Sunset Boulevard outing, and featuring Jane Powell and Christopher Seiber. In 2001, Hofsiss directed Surviving Grace, featuring Illeana Douglas, Linda Hart and Doris Belack, the wife of Broadway director Philip Rose [with musical staging by none other than the American Ballet's Robert LaFosse].

At the Soho Playhouse, in a break from rehearsals for Mormon Boy, Hofsiss took a very deep breath and said, "I'm always proving myself. Of course, that applies to everyone in our business, but it's particularly true - and particularly necessary - for me."

[Photo: ELLIS NASSOUR]