SZ in Tea at Five- Nat'l Tour

[Ace]

Broadway World: Zimbalist to Play Hepburn in National Tour of Tea at Five[/url]

Thursday, July 13, 2006; Posted: 1:05 PM - by BWW News Desk

Stephanie Zimbalist will take on the role of iconic film and theatre star Katharine Hepburn in the upcoming national tour of Matthew Lombardo's one-woman play Tea at Five.

The show, which was billed as "an intimate look at Katharine Hepburn at home in her Fenwick estate in Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 1938," is helmed by original director John Tillinger. It will launch at St. Paul, MN's Ordway Center for the Performing Arts from September 19th through October 1st before heading to engagements in cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and Denver.

The show originally played Off-Broadway's Promenade Theatre from March 9th through July 13th, 2003. Kate Mulgrew, who originated the role of Hepburn, received a Lucille Lortel Award nomiation for her work as the independent actress.

Zimbalist is best known to TV audiences for having played Laura Holt on "Remington Steele" from 1982 to 1987. Her stage credits include My One and Only and The Cherry Orchard, while her almost five dozen other film and TV credits include "Judging Amy," "A Letter to Three Wives," "Love on the Run" and a TV version of the musical Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.

[Ace]

Twin Cities- Pioneer Press: Zimbalist will play Hepburn

ON STAGE

Zimbalist will play Hepburn

Stephanie Zimbalist (you know her as the actress who played opposite Pierce Brosnan on the TV show "Remington Steele") is coming to the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.

Zimbalist will portray Katharine Hepburn in the national tour of "Tea At Five." The play looks at the legendary actress in 1938, when she had been labeled "box office poison" after a series of flops, and in 1983, just after she was in a car accident.

Performances are Sept. 19 through Oct. 1, and tickets are $45-$40. Call 651-224-4222.

================================================================

I know it's naughty but that parenthetical description made me laugh because all I could think of reading it was what SZ once said in an interview and how much she'd probably hate it.

[Myrtle Groggins]

This is great news. I'll have to check for a city near me, as our usual theatre was drowned last year and there has been no sign of repairs. Darn. That means I'll have to travel to see this show.

[peppler]

I will be traveling to the play as well. I will probably see it in Atlanta.

[laura]

Oh please Myrtle, don't complain, at least you're in the USA...!
I plan to come but it's a "bit" more difficult : I'm in France ... :-(

[Yuliya]

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Don't kill me. I've been wondering if I wanted to see it should it come to my doorstep...

[Ace]

Does Tea At Five currently have any other webpage with more up to date information than this:

www.teaatfive.com/index.php

[Myrtle Groggins]

France, oh laura, that is a bit farther away. And here I was complaining about a few measly miles.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens. As far as I know that's the only website for the play so far. Life is tough. Although you can see the current info on the theatre in St Paul: www.ordway.org

[laura]

Yes, it's going to be more difficult for me...

Myrtle, I'm answering you here about your last post on "Stephanie in Hamlet" (as it's about "Tea at five it'll be more convenient !!)

Hitchhiking to St Paul ? Well, for the moment she only signed to perform over there, maybe she's going to do the entire tour even so, as initially announced (hope so !!)

The first one who knows more will have to post it !! Let's keep our fingers crossed...

[Myrtle Groggins]

Yeah, I'd love to see SZ as KH. I really do hope she does the tour because it might bring her closer to me. Hitchhiking to St Paul would probably not be wise. I'll keep watching to see if there is anymore info.

[judithmoose]

Stephanie said she's only doing the play for the Ordway performances before deciding if she wants to do the national tour. She wants to "test drive" the role before she commits to the entire run. I'll be seeing her again in mid-October and will let you know what she has to say about future appearances.

[laura]

Thank you Judith for the news !!!
(That's funny how one wanders and meets again on the web).

I hope so much she's going to do the tour ! With other members we plan to gather in Atlanta and see the play...

[Myrtle Groggins]

I think it would be great if she'd do the whole tour. Although it might interfere with other plans or projects she may have. But if she can got to Atlanta, well.... ;D

Thanks for the response, Judith.

[Mickey Boggs]

If there is anyone on this board who is not on either SteeleWatchers or the SZ Yahoo! group and is going to see her in Minneapolis, please respond. I'm just curious as to how many people are making a special trip to see her.

[judithmoose]

I will have absolute confirmation on Wednesday when I'm in St. Paul with her but it appears that Detroit has been added to Stephanie's run. Dates for the performances are February 2nd through 4th. Should there be other dates to announce I will do so upon my return.

Have a great weekend everyone!

[judithmoose]

Hello everyone!

Returned last night from St. Paul and an evening and morning with Stephanie. First let me just tell you that “Tea At Five” is wonderful. She’s got Hepburn down to an art and some of the expressions she’s come up with are absolutely darling! If you get the chance to see it, you absolutely must go. There will be additional press releases and articles going out later this afternoon but for the sake of saving you from having to search for them, here are the details I know you all want.

Stephanie doesn’t know if she’s doing the third week or not because the producer hasn’t told her yet. They’re waiting to see how ticket sales go before he tells her whether she’s staying. (If she does stay then I will be back on an airplane because closing night will be her birthday)

She’s NOT doing anything other than St. Paul and I’m including that detail in the new release going out today. She’s got quite a few other projects on the burner that the producers knew about BEFORE they announced that she was doing the national tour and she’s sticking to her schedule.

Regarding people getting backstage to meet her. I gave her a list of the people that I know are going in along with the dates you’re going. Whether she’s willing to meet with people after the show will be up to her. I can tell you that spending two hours on stage by yourself is exhausting and she was a little worse for the wear after Thursday’s performance. You also have to keep in mind that if you’re going in on Friday or Saturday that she’s going to be exceedingly tired as she will have done three shows. For those of you who pointed out what seats you have, I’ve also supplied her with that information.

Now on to another item. I was asked to pass this along and was simply going to scan it and post it to the group but it’s easier for me to simply type it instead. For those of you who sent arrangements (which she absolutely loved and there are so many there that her dressing room resembles a gangster’s funeral…) she has sent the following message:

“Dear Ones,

Thanks ever so much for remembering me and helping me go thru the fire with my first audience for “Tea At Five”. I so appreciate your buoying support, care, and belief in me. What did I ever do to deserve all this wonderful support?

Many, many thanks to you all,
Stephanie Zimbalist”

Finally, it is with great pleasure that I can announce that there are plans in the process for The Official Stephanie Zimbalist Web Site. We went over a few details yesterday on what could be included and will talk about it more next month after she’s home.

So that’s about it for now. If there’s anything else you want to know please drop me a message but please forgive me if it takes a little extra time for me to answer. I’m a little swamped with work and after yesterday now have even more to do.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!
Judy

[Ace]

St Paul Pioneer Press: A portrait of Katharine Hepburn, unvarnished, fascinating
BY RENEE VALOIS
Special To Pioneer Press

Early in Katharine Hepburn's career, when her acting coach asked her if she wanted to be a star or an actress, Hepburn replied, "A star!" This may come as no surprise to detractors who complain that Hepburn refused to disappear into her characters because she wanted audiences to remember that they were watching Katharine Hepburn — the great star.

On the other hand, it's hard to deny that Hepburn was a superior actress — especially since no woman has been nominated for more best actress Academy Awards (12) or won more (4), over the course of nearly 50 years in a career that didn't ebb until she was in her 70s and facing health problems.

"Tea at Five" at the Ordway offers fascinating insights into the events and people who shaped Hepburn, with fellow Connecticut native Stephanie Zimbalist starring in the one-woman show. (An interesting side note: Zimbalist's father dated Hepburn's sister.)

The show is entirely set in Hepburn's childhood home, the family estate in Fenwick, Conn. — her little "paradise" where she frequently visited and often lived.

The first half takes place in 1938 when Hepburn had just been labeled "box office poison" after a series of film flops (despite the fact that she had won her first Oscar for best actress just a few years earlier). She is desperately hoping to land the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind," and makes the audience her confidante as she serves tea — a required tradition in the stuffy Hepburn household.

Zimbalist doesn't look a lot like the young Hepburn, but she manages to convey some of her famous accent and artificial, rolling laugh. Her repeated poses on the divan suggest Hepburn's poseur side as she projects the ego and irascibility that infuriated some. Hepburn's responses to phone calls in the play are often surprisingly rude, filled with bluntness and self-absorption. There is also plenty of humor in her nasty little quips and self-deprecating assessments.

The first half doesn't paint a particularly pretty portrait of the actress, although it's probably a more accurate image than Hepburn created in her autobiography, modestly titled "Me."

Things become far more involving in the second half, when Hepburn starts to reveal the skeletons in her uppercrust family's extensive closets. We discover some of the terrible events that molded her: the tragic death of her beloved brother when she was 14, her physician father's refusal to allow her mother to have a career, the repression and silence demanded in the household because her father believed the family's image was more important than emotional honesty.

Zimbalist also melts more believably into the role of the elderly Hepburn in Act II, which takes place in 1983, shortly after the actress was injured in a car accident and just a couple years after she won her final Oscar for "On Golden Pond."

Matthew Lombardo's script delves into the complexities that made Hepburn inscrutable to many, and succeeds in making her sympathetic despite some less-than-admirable actions. Director John Tillinger helps Zimbalist fill up the stage with Hepburn's strong personality—-and the restlessness that ultimately drove her to the top.

"Tea at Five" is a fascinating character study of an actress who was every bit as colorful as the characters she portrayed.

If you go

What: "Tea at Five"

Where: Ordway Center, McKnight Theatre, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

When: Through Oct. 1

Tickets: $40-45

Information: 651-224-4222, www.ordway.org

Capsule: Reveals surprising insights into a famous star.

[Ace]

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Theater spotlight: 'Tea at Five'

September 15, 2006

Previewing Tuesday: From "box-office poison" to screen and stage royalty, Katharine Hepburn's life spanned the depths and peaks of Hollywood. Her story, which includes a romance with Spencer Tracy, is depicted by Stephanie Zimbalist in Matthew Lombardo's one-person, two-act work. The story begins in 1938, in the wake of some recent Hepburn flops, and ends in 1983, shortly after a car accident. Although Hepburn was a well-known smoker, Zimbalist has chosen not to light up on stage. "In all the pictures in the '30s and in a lot of her movies, she's smoking, but the minute an audience sees the cigarette, they start to cough," said Zimbalist. "It takes them out of the play. Then when you light it and it's not real tobacco, they start to wonder, what's that funny smell like marijuana?" Lombardo does not include gossip about Hepburn's private life, and Zimbalist agrees with that. "There are a lot of salacious biographies coming out on her, and I, for one, am mad," she said. "To take a career like [Laurence] Olivier's, and he was one of the great actors that ever lived, and reduce him to the fact that he was a closet homosexual, or to do that to Alec Guinness -- that's a real disservice. Who cares that Mozart farted all the time? Or that K.H. had all these smarmy affairs?" (8 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m next Sun. Ends Oct. 1. $40-$45. Ordway Center, 5th and Washington Sts., St. Paul. 651-224-4222 or

ROHAN PRESTON

[laura]

The play ended last Sunday, Stephanie couldn't have the opportunity to finish it on her birthday

Such a pity !!!!!!