'LAST SUMMER AT BLUEFISH COVE' IS BROADWAY BOUND

Director Cynthia Nixon

Producers Harriet Newman Leve, Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner are thrilled to announce a 2020 Broadway bound production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove.

Last Summer at Bluefish Cove is written by Jane Chambers and will be directed by Cynthia Nixon.

Casting, creative team, theatre and dates will be announced at a later date.

It’s 1980 at Bluefish Cove: a lesbian beachside haven. Lil Zalinski and her close knit group of friends take refuge here each summer to live and love freely. When a straight woman named Eva wanders unknowingly into their midst, she sends The Cove into a tailspin and knocks Lil off her feet.

This will be the 40th anniversary production of the landmark lesbian play that broke extraordinary new ground when it premiered Off-Broadway in 1980.

The Broadway bound 40th anniversary production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove will be Broadway’s first with an all-woman creative team and cast.

ABOUT THE TEAM

JANE CHAMBERS (Playwright, 1937-1983) is considered one of the most significant lesbian playwrights because of her depiction of the love between women as non-pathological. She was a novelist and poet who wrote for television as well. Chambers worked for a literary agent, acted, directed, was a staff writer for a television station in Poland Spring, Maine, and was the director of avocation for the Job Corps in Jersey City. It was there she met Beth Allen, who became her life partner and manager. In 1972, she founded the Women's Interart Theater in New York City with Margot Lewitin. Her playwriting career continued with a series of one acts performed at Interart Theater. Last Summer at Bluefish Cove premiered at Shandol Theater in New York City. Later, it was produced by John Glines and Lawrence Lane Off-Broadway at The Actor’s Playhouse, to rave reviews. During rehearsals for Kudzu, Chambers became ill with what was subsequently diagnosed as a brain tumor. The Women in Theatre Program, an organization within the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, created the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award in her honor to encourage new plays about women's experiences that have a majority of principal roles for women.

CYNTHIA NIXON (Director) is a two-time Emmy, two-time Tony, SAG and Grammy Award-winning actress, who has been nominated for four Golden Globes. She has been acting professionally since the age of 12. She has appeared in over forty stage productions, a dozen on Broadway. Nixon will be seen next in Ryan Murphy’s “Ratched,” a “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” prequel, opposite Sarah Paulson on Netflix and in Julian Fellowes’ “Gilded Age” set in 1880’s New York opposite Christine Baranski for HBO. Cynthia is best known for her role as Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series “Sex and the City.” She then went on to co-star in the two Sex and the City films. Cynthia made her directorial debut at The New Group with Joel Johnson's Rasheeda Speaking, which received Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations. Cynthia directed two plays that ran simultaneously. The first was New Group’s Steve, about a group of middle-aged gay friends struggling with their newly-won civil rights. The second was MotherStruck!, a one woman play written by and starring lesbian Jamaican spoken word poet Staceyann Chin at The Culture Project. A lifelong New Yorker, Cynthia has been a longtime activist for better funding for public schools, abortion rights and LGBTQ equality. In 2018 Cynthia ran for Governor of New York State. Her campaign successfully placed issues of racial, economic and gender inequality front and center. She and her wife Christine have three sons: Sam, Charlie and Max.

HARRIET NEWMAN LEVE (Lead Producer) is a four-time Tony Award winning producer. Broadway credits include: Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, An American in Paris; Beautiful: The Carol King Musical; Hedwig and the Angry Inch starring Neil Patrick Harris; Of Mice and Men starring James Franco; Ann starring Holland Taylor, Nice Work If You Can Get It starring Matthew Broderick; One Man Two Guvnors starring James Corden; War Horse; The 39 Steps; The Norman Conquests; The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett; A Little Night Music starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury; La Cage Aux Folles starring Kelsey Grammer; The Good Body starring Eve Ensler, The Lieutenant of Inishmore; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom starring Whoopi Goldberg; The Crucible starring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney; Hedda Gabler starring Kate Burton; The Diary of Anne Frank starring Natalie Portman; Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 starring Anna Deavere Smith. Off Broadway productions include: STOMP; Shockheaded Peter; Communicating Doors starring Mary-Louise Parker and Beebo Brinker. She also produced the IMAX film Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey, and the forthcoming films Radium Girls and Liberte: A Call To Spy. Ms. Leve was the Vice President of Development for Tony Bill Film Productions and taught film workshops at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. She also wrote a chapter for the Commercial Theater Institute’s Guide to Producing Plays and Musicals. She is a member of The Broadway League and was on the Board of Directors of New York Stage and Film for four years.

ELLEN DeGENERES (Executive Producer). Host and Executive Producer, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” As a beloved television icon and entertainment pioneer, Ellen DeGeneres’ distinctive comedic voice has resonated with audiences from her first stand-up comedy appearance through her work today on television, in film, and the literary world. Ellen DeGeneres has made a home for herself in daytime with her hit syndicated talk show, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Currently, in its seventeenth season, the show has earned a total of 63 Daytime Emmy® Awards, including 11 for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show, crowning it the record holder in this category. In November 2016, DeGeneres was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by President Obama. She was also presented with the 15th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in October 2012. In 2014, DeGeneres hosted the 86th Annual Academy Awards, drawing the telecast’s largest audience in 14 years, and most famously broke the Internet with her star-studded selfie. DeGeneres, an accomplished best-selling author, released her first home design book, “HOME,” in Fall 2015. Additionally, DeGeneres has had three best-selling books: “Seriously…I’m Kidding,” which includes a compilation of comedic observations, quotes, and stories from her life, “The Funny Thing Is…,” and “My Point…And I Do Have One.” DeGeneres’ production company, A Very Good Production (AVGP), is currently producing a wide range of television including NBC’s fan-favorite game show, “Ellen’s Game of Games,” returning for a third season, a new NBC special event series, “Ellen’s Greatest Night of Giveaways,” NBC’s hit series “Little Big Shots,” “Green Eggs and Ham” for Netflix, Discovery Channel’s “Wildlife Warriors,” and many more. DeGeneres has been successful in her feature film work scoring unprecedented popular and critical response to her character, Dory, in the blockbuster animated feature “Finding Nemo.” The highly anticipated sequel, “Finding Dory,” was released in June 2016 and set the record for the highest-grossing animated film debut at the domestic box office and surpassed the billion-dollar global box office mark.

PORTIA de ROSSI (Executive Producer) is an award winning producer, actress, artist, philanthropist, and the founder and president of General Public, a maverick art curation and publishing company that is revolutionizing the way we think about and collect art. General Public makes a radical proposition: that a painting shouldn’t be enjoyed by just one collector, but should be available to all. Prior to starting General Public, Portia had an extensive career in the entertainment business, having starred in television shows such as Arrested Development (Multiple SAG Award Nominee) and Ally McBeal (SAG Award Winner), among many others. She originally hails from Australia and studied law at the University of Melbourne before moving to the United States.

LILY TOMLIN (Executive Producer), one of America’s foremost comediennes, continues to venture across an ever-widening range of media, starring in television, theater, motion pictures, animation, and video. Throughout her extraordinary career, Tomlin has received numerous awards, including: seven Emmys; a Tony for her one woman Broadway show, Appearing Nitely; a second Tony for Best Actress, a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics’ Circle Award for her one woman performance in Jane Wagner’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; a CableAce Award for Executive Producing the film adaptation of The Search; a Grammy for her comedy album, This is a Recording, as well as nominations for her subsequent albums Modern Scream, And That’s the Truth, and On Stage; and two Peabody Awards–the first for the ABC television special, “Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noël,” and the second for narrating and executive producing the HBO film, “The Celluloid Closet.” In 2003, she received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and, in December 2014, was the recipient of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in Washington DC. She has received numerous nominations for best actress in her starring role in “Grace and Frankie,” and was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild.

JANE WAGNER (Executive Producer), one of America’s most distinguished playwrights, has won numerous awards, including: several Emmys for writing and producing and a Writer’s Guild Award for her work in television. Wagner has also won a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Award and a New York Drama Desk Award for her Broadway success, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; a CableAce Award for Executive Producing the film adaptation of The Search; three Grammy nominations for comedy albums she wrote with Lily Tomlin, Modern Scream, And That’s the Truth, and On Stage; and two Peabody Awards–the first for the CBS television special, “J.T.,” and the second for the ABC television special, “Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noël.”