January 16-February 9, 2025
Island City Stage | www.islandcitystage.org
Family secrets, friendship, and loyalties drive the heart of Island City Stage’s milestone production of Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Delicate Balance, running from January 16 – February 9, 2025. This ambitious creative endeavor, featuring highly acclaimed regional actors, will be the first time Island City Stage has produced a show penned by America’s greatest playwright of the second half of the 20th century.
“I’ve always loved A Delicate Balance. This multiple award-winning work was quite a departure for Edward Albee after his Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It’s dark and funny—a brutal comedy of manners,” said Michael Leeds, associate artistic director of Island City Stage and the show’s director. “To me, the title refers to the delicate balance between life and death, love and hate, and how the balance can shift so easily and suddenly from sanity to madness. I think the play is incredibly relevant in this age where the richest 1% of the world owns 95% of its wealth. A Delicate Balance is a reminder that no one is immune to the passage of time and the inevitability of death. I know it doesn’t sound it, but it’s also very funny!”
In Albee’s three-act play, audiences are introduced to Agnes and Tobias, a wealthy, middle-aged couple whose complacency is shattered when unexpected friends Harry and Edna disrupt their household with unfounded anxiety. Add in Agnes’ witty, yet alcoholic, sister Claire with her quick quips and their troubled daughter Julia’s return home, and a pressure cooker of drama and dysfunction ensues.
A Delicate Balance premiered in 1966 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1967, the first of three Albee received for his work (the others being Seascape (1975), and Three Tall Women (1994). The master American dramatist also received a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005), the gold medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1980), as well as the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts (both in 1996), among many other prestigious theatre and literary awards.
The original Broadway production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance starred Hume Cronyn as Tobias, Jessica Tandy as Agnes, Rosemary Murphy as Claire, Henderson Forsythe as Harry, Carmen Mathews as Edna, and Marian Seldes as Julia. It has been staged several times since, in the U.S. and abroad, with notable stars of stage and screen including Dame Maggie Smith, Glenn Close, Imelda Staunton, Clare Higgins, Bob Balaban, Martha Plimpton, and John Lithgow. In 1996, a revival production starring Rosemary Harris, George Grizzard, John Carter, Elizabeth Wilson, Elaine Stritch, and Mary Beth Hurt won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, as well as Tony Awards for acting and directing, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play.
Island City Stage’s riveting revival of A Delicate Balance is directed by Leeds and stars highly acclaimed Carbonell and regional award-winning actors Patti Gardner (Agnes), Tom Wahl (Tobias), Betty Ann Hunt Strain (Claire), Margery Lowe (Edna), Christopher Dreeson (Harry), and Sabrina Lynn Gore (Julia).
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.islandcitystage.org, call (954) 928-9800, or email boxoffice@islandcitystage.org.
Content Courtesy of Fran Folic, Goodman PR
