[CW-Grad] Chuck Evered in the NY Times

[Robin Russin]

Huzzahs-- and for those who haven't heard, Chuck just got tenure!

Robin


Subject: "Class" / Evered--- NY Times

 
 
A Playwright Inspired by Teachers
By ANITA GATES

A movie star walks into a small, run-down New York studio. Earning $6 million a picture, she feels like a fraud. She has come to seek the help of an acting teacher who was once a distinguished actor and now has a major chip on his shoulder.

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Alicia Grasso

'CLASS' Heather Matarazzo and Thaao Penghlis star in the Charles Evered play.

That’s the setup for Charles Evered’s play “Class,” which has its world premiere at Cape May Stage in a run starting Friday. Mr. Evered’s past plays have included “Running Funny” and “Adopt a Sailor,” which was made into a 2008 film with Bebe Neuwirth and Peter Coyote. He acknowledges that he has written about a teacher this time because of three cherished mentors in his own life.
Born in Passaic and raised in Rutherford, he attended Rutherford High School. His English teacher there was Hugh Thomas, who had been in the original (1960) cast of “The Fantasticks.”

“He was the first person to turn me on to theater, that it deserves respect,” Mr. Evered, 45, said in a telephone interview from a friend’s home in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Thomas acted out Shakespearean scenes in class, Mr. Evered recalled: “He’d do the murder scene from ‘Julius Caesar,’ ” playing both parts.

After graduating from Rutgers, Mr. Evered studied drama at Yale, where he was taught by George Roy Hill, the Oscar-winning film director.

Because of his background in making successful, popular movies like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Mr. Hill did not get a lot of respect at Yale, Mr. Evered said.

“There was a real interesting snobbism,” he recalled. “It’s a kind of proof of failure if you’ve reached a lot of people.”

Mr. Evered’s third mentor was the actor and director Austin Pendleton. “I basically got coffee for him at the Williamstown Theater Festival for a couple of years,” Mr. Evered said, referring to the prestigious Massachusetts organization.

In “Class,” the mentor is played by Thaao Penghlis, best known as a television soap-opera actor; he played Tony DiMera — kidnapper, rapist, count — on “Days of Our Lives.” The play’s director is Roy Steinberg, who worked on that soap opera as a director and producer.

The actress is played by Heather Matarazzo — yes, little Heather Matarazzo of the 1995 indie film “Welcome to the Dollhouse.” She’s 27 now.

Mr. Evered plans to be there for the play’s opening night performance, on Saturday. Although he and his family are living in California now, while his wife recuperates from an automobile accident, they own a house in Princeton and consider New Jersey home.

ANITA GATES


“Class,” by Charles Evered, is at Cape May Stage, Robert Shackleton Playhouse, Bank and Lafayette Streets, through June 12. (609) 884-1341; capemaystage.com.

END


Robin Russin

Associate Professor & Graduate Advisor
Department of Theatre
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
(951) 827-2707
(213) 949-1061 cel
robin.russin at ucr.edu
http://robinrussin.com

"I try all things; I achieve what I can." - Ishmael in "Moby Dick," written by Herman Melville

"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it." - William Munny in "Unforgiven," written by David Webb Peoples

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