1999 Tony Winner Dench Closes Amy's View July 18 | Playbill

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News 1999 Tony Winner Dench Closes Amy's View July 18 1999 Tony Award-winning Best Actress Dame Judi Dench closes her limited run in David Hare's Amy's View, July 18. The drama played 12 previews and 103 performances.
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1999 Tony Award-winning Best Actress Dame Judi Dench closes her limited run in David Hare's Amy's View, July 18. The drama played 12 previews and 103 performances.

Thirteen of those performances were missed by leading lady Dench when her husband, actor Michael Williams, became ill June 23. While Dench left the show to fly back to London to be with him, her understudy, Jennifer Harmon, took over the role as theatrical legend Esme. Harmon, a member of APA-Phoenix Repertory for the last six years, has performed on Broadway in The School for Scandal, The Sisters Rosensweig, Rumors and Blithe Spirit.

Despite the Harmon's reportedly well-received performance, business dropped for the play from a capacity of 99 percent to 52 percent the second week of Dench's absence.

Amy's View was nominated for two 1999 Tony Awards: Best Actress for Dench and Best Supporting Actress for her co-star Samantha Bond.

As Queen Elizabeth in "Shakespeare in Love," Dench won a 1999 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Other film work includes "M" in the most recent James Bond movies, Mistress Quickly in Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" and her Oscar-nominated role as another queen (Victoria) in 1997's "Mrs. Brown." She has not been seen on Broadway since a 1958 U.S. tour with the Old Vic Theatre Company. Bond reprises her London role as the Amy of the title. Bond recently left London's production of Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water to cross over for Broadway's View. Other theatre credits include Three Tall Women, Man of the Moment, Much Ado About Nothing, Les Liasons Dangereuses, Romeo and Juliet and the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Winter's Tale and As You Like It. Like Dench, she has logged time on two recent Bond films, "Goldeneye" and "Tomorrow Never Dies," playing Miss Moneypenny.

A second London Amy's View veteran returned -- Ronald Pickup portrays Frank Oddie. Just a few of the RADA-trained actors' credits include The Norman Conquests, Little Eyolf, Astrov in Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard at the West End Theatre as well as Royal National Theatre productions of Juno and the Paycock, As You Like It (Rosalind), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Guildenstern) and Long Days Journey Into Night (Edmund).

An American addition, Tate Donovan, playing Dominick Tyghe, most recently performed on Broadway in Picnic. Other theatre credits include The American Plan, Bent and The Thrill. Among his film credits: "Memphis Belle," "Ethan Frome," "Love Potion No. 9," and the speaking voice of the title character in Disney's "Hercules."

 

The rest of the Amy's View cast features Tony Award nominee Anne Pitoniak (Picnic) as Evelyn Thomas and Maduka Steady (Scapin) as Toby Cole.

London director Richard Eyre, former head of the Royal National, directs the piece again for New York.

Designing Amy's View are Bob Crowley (sets), Scott Myers (sound) and Mark Henderson (lighting). Music is by Richard Hartley. The show is being produced on Broadway by Robert Fox, Scott Rudin, Roger Berlind, Joan Cullman and The Shubert Organization.

Amy's View opened first in June 1997 at the National Theatre in London before transferring to the West End's Aldwych Theatre Jan. 17, 1998. The production closed there April 18, 1998.

Tickets by phone can be ordered by calling (212) 239-6200. The Barrymore Theatre box office is located at 243 West 47th Street.

 
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