WAM Theatre Casts Spring Production of 'Lady Randy'
LENOX, Mass. — The WAM team has announced the cast for their spring Main Stage production, the world premiere of "Lady Randy" by Anne Undeland.
After two preview performances, the production opens April 20 at Shakespeare & Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, and runs through May 5.
"Lady Randy" is an historical drama about Jennie Jerome, mother of Winston Churchill. The play was first developed by Undeland and director Jim Frangione at the Berkshire Playwrights' Lab, making this a true collaboration of regional talent.
Undeland will play the title role, with WAM newcomer Mark Zeisler is playing the roles of Winston Churchill, Leonard Jerome, Randolph Churchill, the Marlborough Family Solicitor, the Duchess of Marlborough, an English Bloke, Mrs. Everest, Count Charles Kinsky, and Bertie, Prince of Wales.
Undeland is well known to local audiences for her one-woman shows at Ventfort Hall and performances at Mixed Company in Great Barrington and Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, Vt. Zeisler has extensive credits on Broadway and in regional theaters across the country. In the Berkshires, he has performed for the last two seasons with Shakespeare & Company.
"We are thrilled to welcome Anne and Mark to our WAMily," Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven said. "I fell in love with this play when seeing the two of them in a reading of it last year so cannot wait to see these incredibly talented artists bring these characters fully to life onstage in this exciting world premiere."
In 1875, the American heiress, Jennie Jerome, seemed to have have it all. She had married an English lord; she was young, rich, and beautiful; and she had just given birth to Winston Churchill. Lady Randy takes us on a dizzying ride through the treacherous, kaleidoscopic sexual and political landscape of her marriage. A woman ahead of her time, Jennie kept everyone watching, kept them guessing, and she never, ever surrendered.
"Brilliant, maddening, impossibly seductive, and vaultingly ambitious, I fell headlong in love with this woman who was at once so ahead of her time and yet very much a product of her era," said Undeland, who will take on the role of Jennie. "I'm looking forward to channeling Jennie's vitality; that life force that she was and bringing audiences into the heart, mind soul of a human being who just didn't give up.
"Helping WAM Theatre launch the world premiere production of Lady Randy – right here in the Berkshires – is among the biggest thrills of my life," Undeland said. "I hope that the audiences will connect with the production, the character, the story, the energy so that they themselves feel more human, more alive, more able to go outside and say, 'why not?'"
