Prayer for My Enemy
- Written by Craig Lucas
- Directed by Bartlett Sher
Playwrights: Prayer for My Enemy, Small Tragedy, Three Postcards. Other plays: Missing Persons, Prelude to a Kiss, God’s Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, The Singing Forest, Ode To Joy, among others. Libretti: The Light in the Piazza, Two Boys, Orpheus in Love, Amélie. Screenplays: Longtime Companion, The Secret Lives of Dentists, Reckless, Blue Window, Prelude to a Kiss, The Dying Gaul. Direction: The Light in the Piazza, This Thing of Darkness (coauthored with David Schulner), Saved Or Destroyed, Play Yourself, Ode to Joy; the films The Dying Gaul and Birds of America. Lucas has been a Pulitzer finalist, won three Obie awards, and received three Tony nominations. Recipient of Excellence in Literature Award from American Academy of Arts & Letters.
(Updated 8/20/18)
Directed PRAYER FOR MY ENEMY in its world premiere for Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, where he is Artistic Director, and Long Wharf Theatre. He received the 2008 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for his direction of SOUTH PACIFIC at Lincoln Center Theater, where he is Resident Director. He was nominated for Tony Awards for his previous LCT productions, AWAKE AND SING! by Clifford Odets and THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel. Other Intiman credits include plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Wilder, Goldoni and Tony Kushner. Opera credits include ROMEO ET JULIETTE (Salzburg Festival) and THE BARBER OF SEVILLE (Metropolitan Opera). New York credits include CYMBELINE (2001 Callaway Award for Best Director; first American Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company) and WASTE (both Theatre for a New Audience) and THE BUTTERFLY COLLECTION (Playwrights Horizons). Upcoming: OTHELLO for Intiman and THE TALES OF HOFFMANN for the Metropolitan Opera. (As of November 2008)
“Between wars, what is there to do but recall the last and plan for the next?” As the Red Sox fight the Yankees for the AL title, and an enigmatic outsider unspools a tale of filial responsibility, an American family confronts its demons – a son returning from Iraq, a father battling the bottle, and a triangle of unresolved romantic tension. Craig Lucas’s new play is a keenly-layered drama about the preciousness of life and the grace to share common ground – even with those we love the least.
Featuring
Cassie Beck
Zachary Booth
Victoria Clark
Jonathan Groff
Michele Pawk
Skipp Sudduth
Playwrights Horizons: The Whale, Prayer for My Enemy, The Drunken City (Theatre World Award). Broadway: The Humans (Drama Desk Award, also Off-Broadway and National Tour), Picnic, The Norman Conquests. Other Off-Broadway: By the Water, Happy Hour, Smudge, Oohrah!. Television: “The Accidental Wolf,” “Shameless,” “Chicago Med,” “The Strange Ones,” “Elementary,” “Almost There.”
Off -Broadway: Prayer for My Enemy (Playwrights Horizons), Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen (Women’s Project), Spine and Pentecost (Barrow Group). Film: The Beaver, White Irish Drinkers, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Taking Woodstock, The Marc Pease Experience, Assassination of a High School President, Venice. TV: “Damages,” “Royal Pains,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “New Amsterdam,” “What Goes On.” Received a B.F.A. from the University of Michigan Department of Theatre and Drama. Member of the Actors Center Workshop Company, the Barrow Group Theatre community, Peterborough Players community. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Julia, Chris, Nancy, Kevin, Nora, Laurie, Stephen and everyone at PH! AEA. (As of August 2010)
Playwrights: A Small Fire (Drama Desk & Lucille Lortel nominations), Prayer for my Enemy. Broadway: Beautiful, Hairspray, Losing Louie, Mamma Mia, Hollywood Arms (Tony Award), Chicago, Seussical, Cabaret (Drama Desk & Outer Critics’ Circle nominations), Triumph of Love, Crazy for You (Drama Desk nomination), Mail. Select Off- Broadway: Picnic, 17 Orchard Point, Giant, The Paris Letter (Drama Desk nomination), Hello Again, Merrily We Roll Along. Michele is Board Chair of American Theater Group, and proud faculty member at Wagner College.
Creative Team
John McDermott
Scenic DesignerCatherine Zuber
Costume DesignerStephen Strawbridge
Lighting DesignerScott Lehrer
Sound DesignerLisa Ann Chernoff
Production Stage Manager
Photos of (1) Cassie Beck, Michele Pawk, and Jonathan Groff; (2) Michele Pawk, Skipp Sudduth, Zachary Booth, Cassie Beck, and Jonathan Groff; (3) Jonathan Groff and Victoria Clarke; and (4) Skipp Sudduth and Michele Pawk by Joan Marcus.
Prayer for My Enemy has more food for thought than a dozen average new American plays. Craig Lucas retains the fertile, restless and exacting imagination that has made him such a valuable dramatist. Jonathan Groff exudes the charismatic aura of distressed youth that he brought to Hair and Spring Awakening.
A multilayered, deeply unsettling and beautifully conceived new work.
Deeply felt. Under Bartlett Sher’s sensitive direction, the talented cast delivers flawless performances.
Classy staging and a top-notch cast. Victoria Clark delivers a lovely, self-effacingly
funny performance.
