7 /10 1 Votes
First performance 11 August 1999 Composer Jason Robert Brown | 3.5/5 Goodreads Playwright Kenneth Lonergan Nominations Pulitzer Prize for Drama | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Similar Lobby Hero, This Is Our Youth, As Bees In Honey Drown, Painting Churches, Urban Cowboy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Waverly Gallery is a play by Kenneth Lonergan. It is considered a "memory play". The show, first produced Off-Broadway in 2000, follows a grandson watching his grandmother slowly die from Alzheimer's disease. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001.
Contents
Production
The play opened Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theater on March 22, 2000 and closed on May 21, 2000. Directed by Scott Ellis, the play starred Eileen Heckart as Gladys Green and Josh Hamilton as Daniel. The play originally premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, running from August 11, 1999 to August 22, 1999. Joanne Woodward filled in for an ailing Eileen Heckart in the final four performances.
Reception
Charles Isherwood of Variety said, "The life trauma being depicted has an inherent pathos, and in Lonergan's hands, no small amount of comic potential. And yet, while Lonergran mines his subject with delicacy and wit, he runs out of dramatic ore well before the evening's end."
Awards and nominations
The Waverly Gallery was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001.
The play won the 2000 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress (Heckart); the 1999-2000 Obie Award, Performance (Heckart); the 2000 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Actress (Heckart); and the 2000 Drama League Award, Distinguished Performance (Heckart). It was nominated for the 2000 Outer Critics Circle Award, John Glassner Award (Lonergan).