The Wooster Group to bring ‘Town Bloody Hall’ adaptation to L.A., with Maura Tierney
Having married its far-out avant-garde aesthetic to numerous classic dramas over the decades, the Wooster Group will attempt to adapt a documentary film for the stage when it debuts its new production “The Town Hall Affair” in Los Angeles next year.
The production is an adaptation of the feminism-themed 1979 documentary “Town Bloody Hall,” directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker. The run at REDCAT in downtown L.A. is set for March 22 to April 2.
Elizabeth LeCompte, the Wooster Group’s longtime director, will stage the new play. The cast will feature such Wooster stalwarts as Kate Valk, Scott Shepherd and Ari Fliakos. Actress Maura Tierney, who is Emmy nominated this year for Showtime’s “The Affair,” will join the cast.
Tierney previously appeared in the Wooster Group’s production of “North Atlantic,” which came to L.A. in 2010.
The original documentary captured a riotous 1971 panel featuring such feminist luminaries as Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston and Diana Trilling. Norman Mailer served as the moderator of the discussion, which took place at New York’s Town Hall.
At one point during the panel, Johnston infamously declared that “all women are lesbians, except those who don’t know it.”
The Wooster Group has partnered numerous times with REDCAT to present new works. In February, the company’s new production of Harold Pinter’s “The Room” ran into problems with the licensing company for the play, which said that critics could not review the show. (The Times reviewed it despite the ban.)
Other recent Wooster productions to come to L.A. include “Early Shaker Spirituals” in 2015, “Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida)” in 2014 and “Vieux Carré” by Tennessee Williams in 2010.
The upcoming 2016-17 season at REDCAT will also feature a new work from the musicians Stew and Heidi Rodewald titled “Notes of a Native Song” (Dec. 14- 17); and the previously announced “The Source” (Oct. 19-23 ), an L.A. Opera co-presentation based on the life of Chelsea Manning, the transgender Army whistle-blower.
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