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Preview by Jack Foley
VISITING Mr Green, the New York hit comedy by
award-winning author, Jeff Baron, is to receive its eagerly awaited
London premiere at the New End Theatre, Hampstead.,
for a strictly-limited five-week season from March 1, 2005.
Jewish widower, Mr Green (Brian Greene), a retired dry cleaner,
wanders into traffic and is almost hit by a speeding car driven
by Ross Gardiner (Shane Allin).
The young executive is charged with reckless driving and sentenced
to community service, once a week for six months, to care for
the difficult Mr Green.
What starts as a comedy about two people who resent being in
the same room together turns into a gripping and moving drama.
Family secrets are revealed and old wounds reopened as both
men are forced to understand and tolerate their differences.
The Drama League nominated Jeff Baron’s first play, Visiting
Mr Green, as Best Play.
Following its two-year run at the Union Square Theatre, in New
York, it has been translated into 20 languages and performed around
the world in over 200 separate productions.
Its many awards include Best Play in Israel, Greece and Germany
and Turkey, and was a Best New Play nominee for the Moliere Award
in France.
Baron was awarded the KulturPreis Europa 2001, the first American
and the first playwright to receive this award.
He was invited, in 1999, to speak at the United Nations and to
present a reading of Visitng Mr Green, and recently completed
a screenplay for a film of Visiting Mr Green to star
Eli Wallach.
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His second play, Mother's Day,
has been produced in Australia, Germany and Brazil and Michigan
and he has just finished two new plays, Mr & Mrs G,
and in collaboration with Moe Angelos, Edna and Joe Forever.
In addition to his work in theatre, Jeff Baron wrote and sold
four original screenplays.
His film, The Bruce Diet, won the Cine Golden Eagle
award and has been featured at film festivals around the world.
For television, he has written for The Tracey Ullman Show, A
Year in the Life and Nickelodeon.
His journalism, poetry and fiction have been published in New
York Magazine, Dallas Times Herald, Tetu (Paris), TO (Toronto),
and the New York Daily News.
The star of the production, Brian Greene, has become an established
actor by the age of ten in his hometown of Chicago, USA.
Leading roles have included Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha,
Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, and Ben in Paint Your
Wagon.
He has also appeared in American television on shows such as
Hill Street Blues, Days Of Our Lives and Mash.
In London, he appeared in A Saint She Aint at the King’s
Head and Apollo Theatre, Jolson at the Victoria Palace
and also in Toronto.
Most recently, he appeared as Uncle Willie in High Society
at the Shakespeare Theatre in Regents Park.
His co-star, Shane Allin, trained at the Webber Douglas Academy
of Dramatic Art.
Theatre includes the lead in Chris Chibnall's Now We Are
Free at the Edinburgh Festival, Sticks & Stones
by Lance Nielsen, The Brick by Nigel Swain, amd Pains
of Youth by Ferdinand Bruckner with the Theatre 28 Ensemble.
Visiting Mr Green at NEW END THEATRE from March 1 until
April 3, 2005. 27 New End, Hampstead, London, NW3 1JD
Box Office 0870 033 2733
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