For the 2002-2003 season I would like to propose the play, The Royal Family, by George Kaufman and Edna Ferber. I'd also like to propose myself as director.

The Story:
As the play begins, three generations of divas in a Park Avenue luxury apartment try to straighten out their love and career problems: grandmother, mother, grandchild. Recovering from a long illness and ready to resume her role as queen of the touring companies, Fanny Cavendish (60-70s) rules the family. Broadway star Julia Cavendish (40s) awaits a visit from the man who got away. Young Gwen (20s), ingenue extraordinaire, has fallen deeply in love with a fellow who wants to marry an old-fashioned girl. In bursts Julia's  brother Tony fleeing the director he slugged, the starlet he seduced, and his career as a Hollywood star. For the next three acts The Royal Family juggles backstage drama and comedy on its way to revealing all the family secrets. (If you go to the website  < http://www.arches.uga.edu/~fteague/RoyalFam.html > you'll find a fuller description of the events in the play.)

The Production:
The play has about fifteen roles, which I would probably cast as 7 men and 7 women (i.e., I'd change some of the men's roles to women's roles and consolidate some of the tiny parts). It uses a single set: the living room of a 1920s New York penthouse. The production would be period, and the costumes should make the audience's mouths water. In an ideal universe, I would be directing it in late May or as the summer play.

Why this Show?
In the past I've seen two or three productions of The Royal Family and have enjoyed them. I like this script because it offers a great range of parts, includes a fair amount of humor, and draws on American theater history, which interests me. (The Cavendishes are a thinly disguised version of the Barrymore family.) But mostly I like the script because it's so well-written, ranging from serious moments (like the cutting you'll find on the website I've mentioned) to the comic overlay of voices at the end of Act I. George Kaufman is one of my favorite playwrights, no matter whom he's teamed with; Edna Ferber too is an important writer who has been neglected in the past twenty years. To the best of my knowledge, Town & Gown has never done this show, but other Kaufman scripts (You Can't Take It with You or The Man Who Came to Dinner) have done well for T&G. The royalties would not be great: this show has been around for a while. Yet it still has life: a London production starring Judi Dench has just opened. Here's what the London Times said about it < http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-2001381674,00.html >.

Why Me?
I hope that my track record is an argument for accepting the proposal: I directed my first show in the theater in 1981 (Dear Liar for Athens Montessori School). Since then I have directed Graceland, The Dresser, A Midsummer Night's Dream,The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Comedy of Errors for the Mainstage, and Fool for Love, Arms and the Man, and The Physicists for Second Stage. All of my shows have made money; none has been cheesy. (According to some figures Eric showed me, The Comedy of Errors had over $3,000 in ticket sales, second only to Mockingbird, and we beat Mockingbird handily in the number of season ticket holders who came.) The script is one that we can do well, that should appeal to our season subscribers, and that would be fun to undertake.