Jonathan Bank, Artistic Directorpresents

TWO SHORT (and sweet) PLAYS

BY J.M. BARRIEDIRECTED BY

ELEANOR REISSAWith

Mary Ellen Ashley

Anne-Marie Cusson

Richard Easton

Aaron Krohn

Katherine McGrath

Pat Nesbit

Gareth Saxe

Frances Sternhagen

Jenny Strassberg

SetsVicki R. Davis

LightsTraci Klainer

CostumesDebra Stein

PropsJudi Guralnick

SoundBruce Ellman

CastingSharron Bower

DialectsAmy Stoller

Stage ManagerJana Llynn

Press RepresentativeDavid Gersten

& Associates

FlyerJude Dvorak

July6th - August 22NDTuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 7:00

Friday & Saturday at 8:00 ★ Saturday and Sunday at 2:00

TO ORDER TICKETS CALL (212) 315-0231OR VISIT OUR ON-LINE BOX OFFICE: WWW.MINTTHEATER.ORG

★ PERFORMANCES AT THE MINT THEATER 311 W. 43RD ST. 5TH FLOOR ★

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$35 for performances July 6th – July 17th $45 for performances July 20th – August 15th

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Frances Sternhagen recentlyappeared in Talking HeadsOff-Broadway, for which shereceived an Outer CriticsCircle Award. Before that, sheappeared in Morning’s at Sevenon Broadway, for which shereceived a Tony nomination.Nominated seven times for aTony Award, she has received it twice, for The Good Doctorand The Heiress.

Richard Easton last appearedwith Ms. Sternhagen playingJohn Worthing to her Gwendolynin The Importance of BeingEarnest in 1960. He receivedthe 2001 Tony, Drama Deskand Outer Critics Circle Awardsfor his performance in TomStoppard’s The Invention of Love.Mr. Easton played the title rolein the 2004 Tony winning revivalof Henry IV at Lincoln Center.

★ ECHOES OF THE WAR★SURROUND EVENTS

Discussions last approximately 50 minutes and can be attended by allMint patrons to any performance of Echoes of the War free of charge.

The Stage Women’s War Relief Fund (1917)

Join Professor J. Ellen Gainor of Cornell University on Saturday July10th following the matinee (or prior to the evening performance) for astimulating discussion of J. M. Barrie and the last New York productionof Echoes of the War. Gainor is the author of The Plays of Susan Glaspell:A Contextual Study. She holds degrees from Harvard and PrincetonUniversities and the Yale School of Drama.

Echoes of the War - A discussion on Barrie and World War I era drama

Martin Meisel, Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic LiteratureEmeritus at Columbia University, will lead a discussion on the drama ofJ. M. Barrie and his contemporaries. Professor Meisel is the author ofShaw and 19th Century Theater and Realisations: Narrative, Pictorial andTheatrical Arts in 19th Century England.

Please check our website for additional events.

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“Written with rare art and infinitely appealing...…heartbreakingly tender and true.”Alexander Woollcott, The New York Times, 1917

TWO SHORT (and sweet) PLAYS BY J.M. BARRIE

“The irony of J.M. Barrie’s career is thathis most famous and most frequentlyperformed play, Peter Pan, probably thegreatest children’s play ever written, hasprevented him from being taken seriouslyas a major dramatist.” R.L. Green

It certainly hasn’t prevented the Mint fromtaking him quite seriously. Beginning July6th, New York’s most “reliable discovererof lost dramatic works worthy of ourattention,” will present ECHOES OFTHE WAR, an evening of two of Barrie’smost charming and poignant one-actplays, first presented in New York in 1917.

Leading the cast of nine will be two ofNew York’s most esteemed and acclaimedstage actors, Frances Sternhagen andRichard Easton. Ms. Sternhagen made herfirst appearance on Broadway nearly 50years ago and has received seven Tonynominations, most recently in 2002 forher performance in Mornings at Seven. Shehas received the award twice: in 1973 forThe Good Doctor and in 1995 for TheHeiress. Mr. Easton made his first appearanceon Broadway in 1958; most recently heplayed the title role in the much-acclaimedLincoln Center production of Shakespeare’sHenry IV. Mr. Easton received a Tony-Award for his performance in TheInvention of Love.

Ms. Sternhagen will take the title role inThe Old Lady Shows Her Medals, asparkling gem considered to be one of thefinest examples of a one-act play ever written.With gentle humor it tells the story of alonely London charwoman who feels evenlonelier when the Great War begins. “Itwas everybody’s war except mine,” shedespairs, so she lies about having a son atthe front and pretends that he sends herletters, a ruse she gets away with until theday he arrives on her doorstep. In 1917Alexander Woollcott of The New York

Times described The Old Lady… as “anappeal to every heart in the house…touchingand true and pure Barrie from beginningto end.” The Old Lady… was performedat the Shaw Festival in 2002 where onecritic wrote, “Barrie creates such a completeemotional bond with the audience that itsforty minutes have a depth and effectbeyond many a full-length play.”

“A perfect thing writtenby a master craftsman.”

Mr. Easton will take the lead in The NewWord, described by Woollcott in 1917 as“a perfect thing written by a master crafts-man… You witness it with such a persistentlump in your throat that you are unlikelyto notice with what canny and thrifty skill,with what consummate art it has been written.It watches an English father trying foronce in his life and for just one farewellhour to break through the embarrassedand ancient British reserve between himselfand his son, determined as he is, that thekhaki-clad boy of 19 shall not get off tothe trenches without his father findingwords somewhere for the emotion withwhich his heart is charged and his lips aretwitching.”

Barrie published these two plays in 1919(along with two others) under the collectivetitle Echoes of the War, which gives ourproduction its name. They received theirNew York premieres in 1917 as part of atriple bill of Barrie—“Three new Barrieplays in a single program is riches beyonddescription,” wrote the Times, “and two ofthem are Barrieisms of purest ray serene,two little war plays written with rare artand infinitely appealing.” Barrie writes ofmother and son, of father and son, withtender intimacy and insight. His concernsare human and not political; his approachis humorous and his genius is exquisitesympathy.

Echoes of the War will demonstrate howmuch more there is to love and appreciateabout J.M. Barrie than Peter Pan, just asThe Truth About Blayds and Mr. Pim PassesBy showed New York theatergoers thatA.A. Milne was so much more than theauthor of Winnie-the-Pooh. Don’t miss outon the summer’s most beautifully touchingtheatrical surprise.

JAMES MATHEW BARRIE (1860-1937)

If J. M. Barrie had only written Peter Pan,its extraordinary and enduring popularitywould testify to his talents as a dramatist.As it is, Peter Pan, which celebrates its100-year anniversary this year, now onlyobscures Barrie’s gifts as a dramatist ofsignificance.

In his lifetime, Barrie was much admiredby his peers and even regarded as a genius,however his work fell out of favor in lateryears. His full length plays include QualityStreet, The Admirable Crichton, WhatEvery Woman Knows, Dear Brutus andMary Rose. One-act plays include TheTwelve-Pound Look, The Will and A Well-Remembered Voice among many others.

During WWI, Barrie devoted himself toraising funds for various charities and warefforts. The proceeds from the 1917 NewYork run of The New Word and The OldLady Shows Her Medals were donated intheir entirety to the Stage Woman’s WarRelief Fund, the organization that went onto become The American Theatre Wing.The Times reported that this was “the firsttime in the annals of the local stage thatthe profits of an entire engagement havebeen devoted to charity.”

When Barrie died, The New York Timesobituary called him “one of the least well-known great men of his time.”

Two short (and sweet) plays by J.M. BarrieThe Old Lady Shows Her Medals and The New Word

“A masterpiece of its kind, profound in its sense of character and vital in its absolute realism.”The New York Evening Post, 1917

Mint Theater Company, “that truffle hound of half-buried treasures from the past,” has a celebrated reputation for excavating such worthy but neglected treasures as Far and Wide, and D.H. Lawrence’s The Daughter-in-Law, nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play and named one of the top ten productionsof the year by The New York Times.

Please join us for J.M. (Peter Pan) Barrie’s touching and timely plays about mothers and sons and fathers and sons featuring Frances Sternhagen and Richard Easton, two of New York’s most esteemed stage actors.

BY J.M. BARRIEStarringFRANCES STERNHAGEN andRICHARD EASTON

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