2004-2005 Season: Tuesdays with Morrie

WRITTEN BY Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom

DIRECTED BY Richard Stein

Cast

Artistic Collaborators

Jeffrey Hatcher (Playwright) Fast becoming one of the most prolific and frequently produced playwrights in the U.S., Jeffrey Hatcher adapted his acclaimed stage play Compleat Female Stage Beauty for the screen. He is currently working on a screenplay of Casanova for director Lasse Hallstrom, as well as screenplays for directors Steven Shainberg (Secretary) and Kim Pierce (Boys Don’t Cry). He has also written for the Peter Falk TV series “Columbo” and E! Entertainment Television.

Mr. Hatcher grew up in Ohio before attending New York University to study acting. After a brief career on stage, he turned his hand to writing. His many award-winning original plays have been performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally across the U.S. and abroad. They include Three Viewings, Scotland Road, Neddy, Korczak’s Children, A Picasso, Mercy of a Storm, Work Song (with Eric Simonson), and Lucky Duck (with Bill Russell and Henry Kreiger).

Recently, Mr. Hatcher wrote the book for the Broadway musical Never Gonna Dance, based on the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film Swingtime. His other stage adaptations include: Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, Anouilh’s Leocadia, To Fool the Eye, Smash (based on George Bernard Shaw’s novel An Unsocial Socialist), Murder by Poe, Pierre (based on the novel by Herman Melville), and Kaufman and Hart’s The Fabulous Invalid. Jeffrey Hatcher is also the author of The Art and Craft of Playwriting. He has won grants and awards from the NEA, TCG, Lila-Wallace Fund, Rosenthal New Play Prize, Frankel Award, Barrymore Award and others. A four-time participant at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, he is a member of the Dramatists Guild, New Dramatists, The Playwrights’ Center, and the WGA.

Mitch Albom (Playwright) is the author of the #1 international best-sellers Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. A nationally syndicated columnist for the Detroit Free Press and a nationally syndicated radio host of his own show originating on WJR in Detroit, Mr. Albom has also been named the top sports columnist in the nation thirteen times by the Associated Press Sports Editors of America — the highest honor in his field. He is the founder of The Dream Fund, a charity which helps underprivileged youth study art, and of A Time to Help, a volunteer program. Mr. Albom serves on the boards of numerous charities. He lives with his wife in Michigan.

Richard Stein (Director) was appointed Executive Director of The Laguna Playhouse in March 1990. His directorial credits there include the American Premiere of Michael Weller’s What the Night Is For, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Jon Marans’ Old Wicked Songs, the World Premiere of Marans’ Jumping for Joy, the West Coast premiere of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things, Arthur Miller’s The Price (Robby Award, Best Production of a Drama), the Southern California Premiere of Richard Dresser’s Gun-Shy, the Los Angeles Area Premiere of Giles Havergal’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt, Jeremy Brooks & Adrian Mitchel’s adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales and the World Premiere of David Drummond’s The Labors of Hercules. In Hartford, Connecticut, he directed Isaac Bashevis Singer & Eve Friedman’s Teibele and Her Demon and Edward Albee’s Seascape, and produced the U.S. Premiere of Albertine, in Five Times by Michel Tremblay and starring Tammy Grimes.

There he also presented distinguished American regional theatre companies on tour, including the Guthrie Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Asolo Theatre, The Acting Company, Mabou Mines, the Vietnam Veterans Ensemble Theatre and Yale Repertory Theatre’s original production of Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson’s acclaimed first play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. With a colleague, he founded the Contemporary Theatre of Syracuse, now in its 26th year. He holds degrees from Columbia and Syracuse Universities, returned to Columbia on a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, and was sent to Korea by the International Theatre Institute on a cultural exchange. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of The League of Resident Theatres (LORT).

Cast Profiles

Jack Axelrod (Morrie) began his acting studies while majoring in architecture at U.C. Berkeley. After working as a designer in California and Maine offices, he was licensed to practice architecture in Washington. However, he continued to follow a dual career. It was not until his second year in New York City, when he landed parts in a Broadway play and a Woody Allen film (Bananas), that he focused on theatre. His life changed when he began what became six years of study with Uta Hagen, a teacher as great as, but very different from, Morrie Schwartz. He has appeared in regional theatres from Maine to San Diego. Most recently he played the title role in Visiting Mr. Green at ICT in Long Beach. Among other significant roles are Freud in Hysteria, Weller in The Gin Game, Nat in I’m Not Rappaport, Polonius in Hamlet, Al Lewis in The Sunshine Boys, and Solomon in The Price. For the past five years he has toured the country with Kenny Rogers in his Christmas from the Heart concerts.

Axelrod has numerous television credits. This past spring he was Grandpa Eddie on the (short-lived) sitcom, “The Help.” Other recent featured appearances include those on “Frasier,” “Alias,” “Ally McBeal,” “Dharma and Greg,” “It’s All Relative,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” etc. A few years ago he was mob-boss Victor Jerome on the soap, “ General Hospital.” In the spring of 2001 he taught acting and directed at Colby College in Maine. He has served as teacher and director on the faculties of several schools, notably Penn State, Temple and Boston Universities, and the Universities of Wisconsin and Michigan. As coincidence would have it, he was teaching at Brandeis University in 1973–74, but sadly, never met Morrie Schwartz there.

Daniel Nathan Spector (Mitch) was previously seen in a lead role at The Laguna Playhouse in Jumping for Joy. Prior to that, he appeared in lead roles in two successive seasons at the Pasadena Playhouse performing in Visiting Mr. Green and The Presentment. Extensive theatre credits include the award-winning production of Tartuffe and True West at the Odyssey Theatre, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Shakespeare Festival both in Los Angeles and New York, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Hartford Stage. Television credits include a recurring role on “Ally McBeal,” “Boston Public,” “Miracles,” “Leap of Faith,” “JAG” and “American Family.” He is a pianist /composer, and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. He holds an M.F.A. from N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts.