The original ∽esigning Women wore the skirt suits and heels of a workplace comedy. ∺t the end of the day, whats most important is just appreciating that were all in this together.
We just need to look at each other with more grace and more love, thats what Im gathering from this play, said Carmen Cusack, a Tony-nominated actress who plays Julia in the theatrical version. The creators and producers hope that it will encourage audiences across the political spectrum to build some bridges, too. It is no spoiler to say that the women ultimately triumph, bridging their differences stylishly. Set in the very recent past, the script eavesdrops on the women and a few new characters as they contend with the pandemic, the possible financial collapse of their firm and the 2020 presidential election.
ONSTAGE DESIGNING WOMEN SHEDS SHOULDER NOT TV
In ∽esigning Women the theatrical version the diversity centers on the class backgrounds of its characters, their religious beliefs, their voting patterns, as the TV one had. And, if Im honest, I wanted to know just what this sensation was doing in Fayetteville. Id come to northwest Arkansas for a few days of table work and rehearsal because I had wanted to see if an ∨0s sensation, a sensation I had loved as a kid, still had anything to say to a 2020s audience. He had found me on the cafes patio, in early September, demolishing some local goat cheese. If youre a theater company that sets as its mission creating a more equitable community, then you want to bring people along, Martin Miller, the theaters executive told me. This season includes Katori Halls The Mountaintop, Mike Lews Tiger Style! and Kristoffer Diazs The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Fayetteville, where more than 77% of residents identify as white, is not itself especially diverse. Its programming favors lively dramas and musicals from contemporary playwrights of diverse backgrounds. The building hosts rehearsal spaces, administrative offices, scene and wardrobe shops, a flexible lobby performance space and a welcoming cafe where pastry always seems to be baking. It has two theaters: the West, where ∽esigning Women plays, which seats 275, and the Spring, which seats 120. 15.Ī sleek, glass-walled building, a paper airplanes flight from the University of Arkansas campus, TheaterSquared occupies a busy-ish corner. It will also be available to stream, starting Oct. (Thomason grew up in Hampton, Arkansas Bloodworth-Thomason in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, just over the border.) The play runs through the end of October. Those answers coalesced into a two-act comedy, ∽esigning Women. Directed by Bloodworth-Thomasons husband, Harry Thomason, the play had its premiere recently at TheaterSquared, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. More recently, Bloodworth-Thomason began to think about answers. But friends and fans would often ask Bloodworth-Thomason what Julia, the outspoken founder of the design firm, played by Dixie Carter, might say about same-sex marriage or the #MeToo movement or the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.
The show earned her, Bloodworth-Thomason said, citations from both Mitch McConnell, who had praised an anti-pornography episode, and the ACLU. Set in Atlanta, and centered on a quartet of mouthy women who orbit an interior design firm, it combined feminist politics with click-clack comedy rhythms, celebrating the New South with wit and pluck and shoulder pads. Nominated for a slew of Emmys, it won only one, for outstanding achievement in hairstyling. The voices were those of Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker, Mary Jo Shively and Charlene Frazier, the characters from ∽esigning Women, the half-hour sitcom that premiered on CBS in 1986. She didnt know how else to make them stop. I told my husband, Im going to have to get a gun and shoot them, Bloodworth-Thomason said during a recent phone conversation. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, an Emmy-nominated writer and producer, started hearing voices earlier this year, voices she hadnt heard in nearly 30 years.
0 kommentar(er)
