by Jules Feiffer
Directed by Jerry Zaks

May 15 to July 27, 2003
At the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater
150 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023

Tuesdays-Saturday at 8pm, Wednesday & Saturday at 2pm,
Sunday at 3pm
Opening Night:June 9th at 6:45pm
Tickets: All seats $60

Two of the New York theater’s brightest luminaries will be on hand for the next production at th Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatere at Lincoln Center: influential author, cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer and director extra-ordinaire Jerry Zaks, who, among his long list of theater credits, has staged four of LCT’s best productions — Six Degrees of Separation, Anything Goes, The Front Page and The House of Blue Leaves.

Zaks makes a long overdue return to LCT and will direct A Bad Friend, which begins performances in the Newhouse next month. A Bad Friend focuses on Rose, a typical New York teenager experiencing the strains and pains of growing up in 1953 Brooklyn. What isn’t typical about Rose, however, is her family’s membership in the Communist Party, a circumstance that leads to recriminations and betrayal in this moving, suspenseful and surprisingly funny play.

In a recent interview in The New York Times, Feiffer discussed how he came to write a play that takes place during the period of leftwing politics, McCarthyism, the blacklist and the House Un-American Activities Committee: “Nobody turned out to be quite what they said they were. In this difficult time, the people who you put your faith in turned out to be something other than who they claimed to be.” Building upon this idea, and creating characters partly based on members of his own family, Feiffer’s A Bad Friend evolved into a mystery of sorts – about a family’s efforts to hold on to its unpopular beliefs against the backdrop of rampant McCarthyism.

Jules Feiffer’s first stage effort, a satiric comedy called Little Murders, won an Obie Award in 1967 and was made into a film. Of his other plays, Knock Knock was nominated for a Tony Award and Grown-Ups (which was adapted for television) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Other works include screenplays for “Popeye,” “Carnal Knowledge,” and “I Want to Go Home,” which won the best screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival. His writing includes the novels “Harry the Rat with Women” and “Ackroyd,” plus a large collection of children’s books, many of which have received literary awards.

What Feiffer is best known for, of course, is his Pulitzer Prize-winning career as a cartoonist. His internationally syndicated strip ran for 42 years in the Village Voice, weaving the social, political, and personal into a perceptive, challenging, often hilarious mix. He was commissioned by The New York Times to create its first op-ed page comic strip, which ran monthly until 2000, when Feiffer decided to begin the new millennium by giving up cartooning. The New-York Historical Society is currently exhibiting a major retrospective of Feiffer’s work called Julz Rulz through May 18.

Jerry Zaks has directed a number of stellar New York productions, including Guys and Dolls, Lend Me a Tenor, A Funny Thing Happened . . ., Smokey Joe’s Café, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor. He currently works with Paramount developing new comedies for television and often directs the hit series, “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Among his many awards, he has received four Tonys as Best Director and the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theater. He was Associate Director at LCT from 1986-1990 and since then has been Resident Director for Jujamcyn Theatres.

A Bad Friend will be designed by Douglas Stein (sets), William Ivey Long (costumes), Paul Gallo (lights), Jan Hartley (projections) and Aural Fixation (sound).

The outstanding cast of A Bad Friend includes six actors, most of whom are making their LCT debuts: Larry Bryggman (Proof, Prelude to a Kiss), Mark Feuerstein (television’s “Good Morning, Miami” and “The West Wing”), Jonathan Hadary (Guys and Dolls, Gypsy), David Harbour (The Invention of Love, Fifth of July), Jan Maxwell (A Doll’s House, House/Garden) and Kala Savage (in her New York debut).