Inspired by a true story, the play follows the trail of a young black con man, Paul, who insinuates himself into the lives of a wealthy New York couple, Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, saying he knows their son at college.
Producer Stuart Thompson announced that John Guare's critically acclaimed play Six Degrees of Separation will return to Broadway in a revival starring seven-time Emmy Award winner Allison Janney ("Mom," The Girl on the Train) as Ouisa and Tony Award winner John Benjamin Hickey (The Normal Heart, "Manhattan") as Flan.
Trip Cullman (Significant Other, Punk Rock) will direct the production, which is set to open at the Barrymore Theatre in April 2017 and will run for 15 weeks only.
The good news on the Broadway revival of 'Six Degrees of Separation' is great news. Twenty-seven years after the debut of John Guare's comedy of manners and mores in Manhattan, 'Six Degrees' retains its place as one of the great American plays of the late 20th century. The revival, which opened Tuesday at the Barrymore Theatre, also is a reminder of a time in the theater when two- and three-hander dramas did not dominate the nonprofit world. True, Lincoln Center Theater, which originally produced the Guare play, is now staging a new American drama, 'Oslo,' with a cast of 18. The cast of 18 in 'Six Degrees' is especially astounding because it is possible to imagine the play with just its three principal characters: Ouisa and Flan Kittredge, the art-dealer couple living on the Upper East Side in 1990, and the young black man Paul, who is the alleged son of Sidney Poitier.
Even softened slightly as it is in this production, the play's brutal message to sophisticates, whether at the end of Reagan's era or the start of Trump's, comes through. We still do not know anyone but ourselves - and ourselves not too well, either. The idea that there are 'six degrees of separation' between any two people, which in Guare's formulation became a global catchphrase, is not merely a humanistic piety about interconnectedness; it's also a warning. Those six degrees are unbridgeable if you live on an island.
1990 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1990 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2010 | West End |
Old Vic Production West End |
2017 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Corey Hawkins |
2017 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Allison Janney |
2017 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | Six Degrees of Separation |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Allison Janney |
2017 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Corey Hawkins |
2017 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Six Degrees of Separation |
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