Theatregoers across North America will get their chance to see Christopher Plummer's Tony-winning performance in Barrymore, after an eight-city tour kicks off in Denver July 11.
The one-man stage portrait of actor John Barrymore closed on Broadway Nov. 2, 1997 after and eight-month run. Touring plans were expected shortly thereafter, but Plummer took some time to rest up before committing to a road tour.
The tour included three venues on the West Coast and a stop in Toronto. According to Livent spokesperson Eleanor Goldhar, it's a relatively brief tour (through Dec. 6), due to Plummer's film commitments.
Here, according to Livent's website, are the tour dates for Barrymore:
July 11-Aug. 2 (officially opening July 14): Denver, CO's Auditorium Theatre in PAC
Aug. 4-Sept. 6: San Francisco, CA's Herbst Theatre.
Sept. 8-27: Los Angeles, CA's Ahmanson Theatre
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Sacramento, CA's Community Center.
Oct. 20-Nov. 1: Chicago, IL's Shubert Theatre
Nov. 3-15: Washington DC's National Theatre.
Nov. 17-22: New Haven, CT's Shubert Theatre.
Nov. 24-Dec. 6: Toronto, Canada's Ford Centre. Actor Plummer played 12 previews and 240 regular performances in William Luce's Broadway bio of John Barrymore at the Music Box Theatre. Plummer won not only the 1997 Best Actor Tony, but a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance as the great but volatile thespian.
In the two-character Luce play, Plummer stars as John Barrymore, the once-great classical actor. It's now 1942 and he struggles to recreate his triumphant performance as King Richard III. Though ravaged by time and alcohol, he has lost neither his zest for life nor his passion for his art. John Plumpis plays the unseen, off-stage prompter (named "Frank") who helps Barrymore recall his line, a role played on Broadway by Michael Mastro.
Produced by Livent Inc.'s Garth Drabinsky and directed by Gene Saks, the production toured the U.S. after premiering to positive reviews at Stratford Festival's Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario.
Luce is the author of another fact-based tour de-force, The Belle of Amherst, about Emily Dickinson. He has also been penned one-person shows about Lillian Hellman, Charlotte Bronte, Isak Dinesen and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Christopher Plummer appeared on Broadway in Beckett, The Lark, Othello and Macbeth and has won three Drama Desk, two Outer Critics Circles, a Theatre World, a London Evening Standard, and two Tony Awards. He's perhaps best known for playing Captain Von Trapp in the film of the musical The Sound of Music. His widely varied career includes singing the lead in a musical Cyrano on Broadway, supplying the mellifluous voice of the rhyming narrator in the Madeline children's videos, and portraying a Shakespeare-spouting Klingon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He is so far the last actor to play Macbeth on Broadway.
Barrymore is designed by Santo Loquasto (Ragtime, Lost In Yonkers) with lighting by Natasha Katz.
Barrymore is the third of three views of troubled actor John Barrymore that Broadway has seen recently: Nicol Williamson played the same character in Jack: A Night on the Town With John Barrymore, which had a brief run in spring 1996 at the Belasco Theatre, and Barrymore's ghost figured prominently in the early 1990s comedy, I Hate Hamlet.
