By David Ng for The LA Times
The 2011-12 season at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica will feature a healthy dose of star power in the forms of actress Helen Hunt in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, directed by David Cromer.
"Our Town" (Jan. 13 to Feb. 12) comes to Los Angeles following a critically acclaimed run at New York's Barrow Street Theatre, where Hunt was one of several actors to rotate into the central role of the Stage Manager. The Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress said in an interview that she wanted to reprise the role primarily for personal reasons.
"It's nourishing to work on this play," she said. "It reminded me of everything I cared about in life, and when I stopped playing it, I missed it."
Hunt said the role of the Stage Manager -- which is traditionally played by a man -- takes on new resonance when played by a woman. "It's the same words, but it's not the same," she said. "Some friends who saw it said that they could not believe it wasn't written for a woman. My daughter and stepson saw it in New York and I told them that a man was going to play it after me. They were like, a man's going to play that part?"
Cromer's staging brings the actors and audience together in close proximity. The director will reconfigure the Broad's main space, reducing the number of seats, to achieve the intimacy that is crucial to the production. Cromer's staging of Our Town played in Chicago in 2008.
Photo (top): Helen Hunt. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times.
