L.A. Theatre Works presents Tony Award- and Olivier Award-winning Art by Yasmina Reza, starring Bob Balaban, Brian Cox and Jeff Perry.
About the play:
How much would you pay for a painting with nothing on it? Would it be art? Marc’s best friend Serge has just bought a very expensive and very white – painting. To Marc, the painting is a joke, and as battle lines are drawn, old friends use it to settle scores. With friendships hanging in the balance, the question becomes: how much is a painting worth? “A nonstop cross-fire of crackling language (and) serious issues of life and art…sounds like a marriage of Moliere and Woody Allen,” writes Newsweek.
About the playwright:
Yasmina Reza (born 1 May 1959 or 1960 in Paris) is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter best known for her plays ‘Art’ and God of Carnage.
At the beginning of her career, Reza acted in several new plays as well as in plays by Molière and Marivaux.
In 1987 she wrote Conversations after a Burial, which won the Molière Award, the French equivalent of the Laurence Olivier Award or the Tony Award, for Best Author. The North American debut premiered in February 2013 at Players By The Sea in Jacksonville Beach Florida. Holly Gutshall & Joe Schwarz directed; with Set Design by Anne Roberts. The cast for this US debut was Kevin Bodge, Paul Carelli, Karen Overstreet, Dave Gowan, Holly Gutshall and Olivia Gowan Snell. Reza translated Polanski’s stage version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis in the late 1980s.Her second play, Winter Crossing, won the 1990 Molière Award for Best Fringe Production, and her next play, The Unexpected Man, enjoyed successful productions in England, France, Scandinavia, Germany and New York.
In 1995, ‘Art’ premiered in Paris and went on to win the Molière Award for Best Author. Since then it has been produced worldwide and translated and performed in over 30 languages. The London production, produced by David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers, received the 1996–97 Laurence Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award. It also won the Tony Award for Best Play. Life X 3 has also been produced in Europe, North America and Australia. Screenwriting credits include See You Tomorrow, starring Jeanne Moreau and directed by Reza’s then-partner Didier Martiny.
In September 1997, her first novel, Hammerklavier, was published and another work of fiction, Une Désolation, was published in 2001. Her 2007 work L’Aube le Soir ou la Nuit (Dawn Evening or Night), written after a year of following the campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy caused a sensation in France.
On 24 November 2007 her play Le Dieu du Carnage (God of Carnage), directed by Jürgen Gosch and performed first in Zürich, received the Viennese Nestroy-Theatreprize for the best German-language performance of the season. It opened in London in March 2008, directed by Matthew Warchus in a translation by Christopher Hampton starring Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig, Janet McTeer and Ken Stott.[6] It was produced once again by David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers. The London production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, which Hampton accepted on her behalf. Hampton told the audience that Reza would be thrilled by the win. The play premiered on Broadway with an opening night cast of James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden, and Hope Davis. God of Carnage won Best Play at the 2009 Tony Awards.
