New Phoenix Theatre Offers Reading of Franz Molnar’s The Guardsman at The Colony Theatre on July 1

PRLog (Press Release) - Jun. 29, 2012 - (Los Angeles – CA, June 29, 2012) – The New Phoenix Theatre – Los Angeles presents a staged reading of Franz Molnar’s The Guardsman, starring Ian Buchanan and Peggy Goss on Sunday, July 1 at 6 PM at The Colony Theatre Rehearsal Hall, Burbank, CA. William Bremer, Elizabeth Greer, Zale Kessler, Toni Sawyer and Jim Siering are also featured.

Written in 1910, The Guardsman centers on a celebrated husband-and-wife acting team. He suspects his wife of being unfaithful and decides to test her fidelity and woo her anonymously in the disguise of a Russian Cossack Guardsman. Does she or doesn’t she see through his disguise? A famous stage vehicle for the legendary Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne acting team, The Guardsman was made into a 1931 film starring The Lunts, the only instance in which they appeared onscreen together. Admission is free to the public but reservations are required at 323.661.3720.  

Founded in 2007, New Phoenix Theatre-Los Angeles is a company of theatre artists dedicated to the great international classical theatre repertoire. Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso, co-founders of American Players Theatre, Spring Green, WI, provide artistic advice, direction and inspiration.

Through a series of workshops, readings and chamber theatre presentations, New Phoenix Theatre- LA has presented the following works: (2007) William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet and King Lear* (*text workshop conducted by Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso); Moliere’s The Misanthrope, Tartuffe; Jean Racine’s Phaedre; (2008) William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night;  (2009) Pierre Corneille’s The Cid; Euripides’ Medea; Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts; (2011) Franz Molnar’s The Guardsman. For more information on the New Phoenix Theatre-LA, visit www.newphoenixtheatre-la.com.

Franz Molnar / Playwright (1878-1952)  Molnár's most popular plays are Liliom (1909, tr. 1921), later adapted into the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical play Carousel (1945); The Guardsman (1910, tr. 1924), which served as the basis of the film of the same name (1931); and The Swan (1920, tr. 1922). His Hungarian film from 1918, The Devil, was later adapted for American audiences in 1921 and starring George Arliss in his first nationally released film. The 1956 film version of The Swan (which had been filmed twice before) was Grace Kelly's next to last movie, and was released on the day of her wedding to Prince Rainier.

Two of Molnar's other plays have been adapted for other media: The Good Fairy, was adapted by Preston Sturges and filmed in 1935 with Margaret Sullavan, and subsequently turned into the 1947 Deanna Durbin vehicle, I'll Be Yours. (It also served as the basis for the 1951 Broadway musical Make a Wish, with book by Sturges.) The film version of the operetta The Chocolate Soldier used the plot of Molnar's The Guardsman rather than the plot of its original stage version, which was based on George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man. Molnar's play Olympia was adapted for the movies twice - as His Glorious Night (1929 - the notorious talkie which allegedly ruined John Gilbert's career), and as A Breath of Scandal (1960), starring Sophia Loren. In 1961, Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond turned Molnar's one-act play Egy, kettő, három into the film One, Two, Three starring James Cagney and Horst Buchholz. Finally, Molnar's play The Play at the Castle has twice been adapted into English by writers of note: by P. G. Wodehouse as The Play's the Thing and by Tom Stoppard as Rough Crossing.

IAN BUCHANAN (The Actor) For NPT: Jason in Medea; Pastor Manders in Ghosts; Theseus in Phaedre; Malvolio in Twelfth Night; Claudius in Hamlet. Other stage appearances include starring roles in The Actors Company's critically-acclaimed Entertaining Mr. Sloane and West Coast Ensemble's Equus, The Maids at the Actor’s Playhouse/Studio and The Heiress at the Chichester Festival in England.  Currently, Buchanan is a member of The Ensemble of The Citizen’s Band, an avant-garde cabaret collective of international performance artists, reminiscent of the Weimar Era, whose acclaimed theatrical presentations deal with current and controversial political, religious and social themes. Television guest-starring roles include “Nip/Tuck,” “Alias,” “Hope and Faith,” “Charmed,” Yes, Dear,” “On The Air,” “Quantum Leap,” “It’s The Gary Shandling Show” and “Twin Peaks,” among many others.  He is familiar to audiences worldwide for his starring roles on “Days of Our Lives," "The Bold and The Beautiful,” “General Hospital,” “All My Children” and “Port Charles.”  Films include “Mate,” “Panic Room,” “Lying in Wait,” “Double Exposure,” “The Cool Surface" and “The Seventh Sign.”

PEGGY GOSS (The Actress) NPT: Title roles in Phaedre and Medea; Mrs. Alving in Ghosts.  Peggy received a 2007 Ovation Award nomination for “Best Featured Actress” as Susan in the west coast premiere of Chris Thorpe’s Safety. Other LA stage roles include: Jean in Emma's Child (Odyssey Theater); The Wife in Love in the DMZ (Actor's Workout Studio); Kitty in Last Summer at Bluefish Cove (Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Producers, 2005 GLAAD Award Nomination); Det. Sergeant Caroline Patterson in the American premiere of Gary Mitchell's Force of Change. Television credits include: "Medium," “Alias,” “The Gilmore Girls,” ”Judging Amy” and the HBO series “Tell Me You Love Me.” Film: "Go For It" (winner of the 2010 Audience Award at the L.A Latino Film festival), “Redemption Maddie,” “The Rat Thing” and the title role in the short film “Norma Grace.”  She starred and co-produced the short film "The Road to Ruin," nominated for "Best Sci-Fi Short" at the 2012 Beverly Hills Short Film Festival.

FRANK TOBIN (Producer/Director) Founder of The New Phoenix Theatre - Los Angeles, co-produced the American premiere of Robin Soans' The Arab-Israeli Cookbook at The Met Theatre in 2005, the off-Broadway production of John Byrne's The Slab Boys, which Paramount Pictures later transferred to Broadway and the world premiere of John PiRoman's The Palace of Amateurs. He was formerly general manager of American Players Theatre in Wisconsin, producing Shakespearean plays in rotating repertory, and general manager of The Berkshire Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, which produced revivals of classic American plays and musicals, including the first major US revival of Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle starring Tony Award-winner Mary Louise Wilson. He is currently developing the William Bremer - Jack Hofsiss musical Senior Prom for Broadway and is a member of the producing team behind the film version of Denise Nicholas' Civil Rights Era novel Freshwater Road. He is the co-author, with his sister, Margaret Tobin Heneghan, of the young adult book When You See Water, Call It Water: The Queenmother Yaa Asantewaa Story (Ethidolls: 2008) and recently co-produced Jake Barsha's classic 10-episode horror web-series The Funny Man, which LA Web Festival named "Best Horror Web-Series - 2012."

Organizational Contact:
The New Phoenix Theatre - LA
www.newphoenixtheatre-la.com
323.661.3720