The Scorecard
Mark Lamos’ Westport Country Playhouse production of “Man of La Mancha” will star Philip Hernandez as Don Quixote, with Tony Manna as his sidekick Sancho Panza. Also in the cast: Gisela Adisa as Aldonza/Dulcinea, Ceasar F. Barajas as Pedro, Carlos Encinias as Padre, Michael Scott Gomez as Paco/Guard/Horse, Paola Hernandez as Antonia, Michael Mendez as Innkeeper/Tenorio, Ian Paget as Captain/Anselmo, Lulu Picart as Maria/Housekeeper, David Sattler as Governor, Jermaine Rowe as Juan/Guard/Horse, Clay Singer as Duke/Carrasco and Esteban Suero as Barber/José.
Hernandez has the distinction of being the only actor to play both Jean Valjean and Javert in “Les Miserables” on Broadway. Manna is a Yale School of Drama grad whom Mark Lamos directed in his all-male “Taming of the Shrew” at Yale Rep in 2003, and also appeared at the Rep in “These Paper Bullets!” and “Cymbeline.” Adisa was with the national tour of “Sister Act” when it played the Bushnell in 2013.
“Man of La Mancha” has numerous Connecticut connections. It premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House 53 years ago, one of that theater’s first major successes. Composer Mitch Leigh studied music at Yale. Dale Wasserman, who adapted the musical from his own TV screenplay “I, Don Quixote,” was a founding member of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford.
New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre had its own scaled-down “Man of La Mancha” in 2007, a production that began at Chicago’s Court Theatre.
The Long Wharf “Man of La Mancha” had a cast of 11. Westport’s has 14. The original 1965 Broadway production (as well as the most Broadway revival, in 2003), had 23. Details at westport.org.
Long Wharf Theatre’s season-opener, “The Roommate,” will star Tasha Lawrence and Linda Powell.
“The Roommate” is by Jen Silverman, whose “The Moors” premiered at Yale Rep in 2016 and whose “That Poor Girl and How He Killed Her” was at Connecticut Repertory Theatre last year. “The Roommate” is directed by Mike Donahue, a Yale School of Drama grad who directed the play’s 2014 premiere at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and directed it again for the Williamstown Theatre Festival just last year.
Powell was in the Long Wharf productions of “Our Town” and “A Doll’s House.” Lawrence was in a reading of Samuel D. Hunter’s “A Great Wilderness” at the O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference in 2013. Both Lawrence and Powell were in the Broadway show “Wilder, Wilder, Wilder,” a compendium of one-acts by Thornton Wilder. Details at longwharf.org.