Adapted and directed by Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner James Lapine (Into the Woods, Passion, Sunday in the Park With George), Act One will air at 9 PM ET (check local listings) as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival. The production is based on Hart's 1954 memoir "Act One," chronicling the life of the famed playwright-director from his poor Bronx beginnings to becoming Broadway royalty.
Act One was nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Play. Beowulf Boritt won the Tony Award for his captivating, multi-level set design, built on a large-scale revolve on the Vivan Beaumont Stage.
Here's how it's billed: "Few have captured the magic of the theater better than Moss Hart, a poor kid from the Bronx who went on to become a lion of Broadway, writing classic comedies with George S. Kaufman, including You Can't Take It With You and The Man Who Came to Dinner, and directing the original production of My Fair Lady. Moss' memoir 'Act One' has captivated theater lovers for more than 50 years. In this Tony Award-nominated Best Play from Lincoln Center Theater, James Lapine has fittingly re-imagined this memoir for the stage, creating a world as vivid and transformative as the stage itself."
Read reviews for the production here. Fontana (Cinderella, Billy Elliot), Shalhoub (Golden Boy, Lend Me a Tenor) and young actor Matthew Schechter (Newsies) inhabited Hart at different stages of his life.
They were joined by two-time Tony Award winner Martin (Pippin, My Favorite Year), Bob Ari (Frost/Nixon, The Constant Wife), Bill Army (Relatively Speaking), Will Brill (Tribes), Laurel Casillo (Off-Broadway's Bryan and Kim), Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper (The Life), Steven Kaplan (Off-Broadway's Book Club), Will LeBow (The Merchant of Venice at A.R.T.), Mimi Lieber (I'm Not Rappaport), Charlotte Maier (The Columnist), Noah Marlowe (Mary Poppins), Greg McFadden (The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial), Deborah Offner (LCT's Everett Beekin), Lance Roberts (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Matthew Saldivar (Peter and the Starcatcher), Matthew Schechter (Newsies), Jonathan Spivey (Richard III), Wendy Rich Stetson (A Free Man of Color), Bob Stillman (Dirty Blonde) and Amy Warren (August: Osage County).
Act One has costumes by Jane Greenwood, lighting by Ken Billington, sound by Dan Moses Schreier and original music by Louis Rosen.
