Jennifer Ehle will star with Alan Cumming in Roundabout Theatre Company�s Design for Living. Liz Smith reports today that Ehle will be in the Noel Coward classic when it comes to the American Airlines Theater next February.
Design for Living is the story of a passionate m�nage � trois between a painter named Otto, a playwright named Leo and an interior decorator named Gilda. Gilda vacillates between relationships with Leo and Otto throughout most of the play before finally, at the men�s suggestion, settling on having them both.
Ehle won the 2000 Best Actress in a Play Tony Award for her work in The Real Thing. She joins Cumming, a Tony winner himself (for Roundabout's Cabaret), in the production. No word yet as to who the second leading man will be. Joe Mantello, (The Mineola Twins, Love! Valour! Compassion!) will direct.
from Theatre.com, 8/1//00
By Randy Gener
1999 Tony Award winner Jennifer Ehle (The Real Thing) joins Tony Award-winner Alan Cumming (Cabaret) in Roundabout Theatre Company's upcoming revival of Design For Living.
Cumming will take on the role that Noel Coward wrote for himself. According to Liz Smith, Ehle has been tapped to play the role of Gilda, which was once rumored to be Julianne Moore's. No word yet on who will be the other male lead in the play. Again, the rumor on the Rialto is that Rupert Everett might play the third party.
Joe Mantello will direct the revival of Design for Living, which is scheduled to open on February 2001 at the American Airlines Theatre.
Following his Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical for Cabaret, the classically trained Cumming appeared in a wide variety of films, from Julie Taymor's Titus (based on Titus Andronicus) to Disney's Annie (as Rooster) and the recent The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (as Gazoo). Roundabout is producer of both Cabaret and Design for Living.
Coward wrote Design for Living in 1932 for himself and Broadway's golden couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It was to become one of his greatest successes. A sophisticated comedy, it concerns a menage of three decadent artists gallivanting through London, Paris and New York in search of true love.
Otto the painter and Leo the playwright (Cumming) love Gilda the impulsive beauty who loves to decorate interiors. When she can't decide which one she loves, she creates a "design for living," one that involves a romantic menage a trois.
Later the burden of Otto and Leo's battle for Gilda's attentions becomes too much for her to bear, so she bows out on them both and marries a dependable art dealer named Horton.
Two years later, Otto and Leo show up again, Gilda realizes there's only one thing she can do -- to rejoin the living. She then goes back to Paris with March and Cooper on either arm.
The risque play was turned into a rather tame film version by the filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch.
from Liz Smith's column, 8/11/00
Let us remind you that this weekend is your last chance to see the Tony-winning performance of Jennifer Ehle and her co-actors in the truly grand production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. But not to worry, Jennifer already has a job lined up for next season. She will join another Tony winner, the delectable Alan Cumming (who reinvented the emcee in the current hit Cabaret), in a new production of Noel Coward's 1932 classic, Design for Living. The production will be directed by Joe Mantello, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company and will open next February at the gorgeously restored Selwyn, a.k.a. American Airlines Theatre.
from Liz Smith's column, 12/15/00
The Roundabout Theatre Company is bursting with exciting new projects like Design for Living, previewing Feb. 16. Tony Award-winner Alan Cumming, who stunned us so in Cabaret, and the lovely Jennifer Ehle create a love triangle with Dominic West, in a production directed by Joe Mantello. Sounds hot? Right on! Add Marisa Berenson, John Cunningham, T. Scott Cunningham and Jenny Sterling to the mix.