Guthrie launches with L.A. work

THE Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a leading regional theater and one of the country’s oldest, has chosen a work by West Coast playwright Simon Levy for the inaugural season of its $125-million new riverfront complex.

On July 21, a world premiere adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” by Levy, producing director of the 99-seat Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, will launch the first season of the Guthrie’s 1,100-seat thrust stage. The venue is the largest of the theaters in this new Jean Nouvel-designed complex on the banks of the Mississippi.

Levy’s adaptation of the novel is the first to be granted exclusive stage rights by the Fitzgerald estate since a 1926 Owen Davis adaptation. Previously, the Fountain mounted well-received productions of Levy’s adaptations of Fitzgerald’s “The Last Tycoon” and “Tender is the Night.” The latter garnered the 1996 PEN USA Literary Award in Drama.

“Gatsby,” another Fountain commission, was intended to run there until Levy’s conception of the play outgrew the Fountain’s small stage. While looking for alternatives, Levy was asked by the Guthrie to present a staged reading last September.

“I had no idea that I was, in a sense, auditioning to inaugurate their season,” Levy said.

“Simon has done a superb job in bringing this complex and iconic novel onto the stage and creating a theatrical life for it,” said Joe Dowling, the Guthrie’s artistic director. “And of course, the local connection, with F. Scott Fitzgerald being born in St. Paul, was very compelling.”

Dowling noted that the choice has surprised many who expected Shakespeare, because of the Guthrie’s reputation for classical repertoire, but Levy’s play, combining a classic novel with a contemporary adaptation, is “exactly the sort of programming that I want to do more and more of at the Guthrie.”

David Esbjornson, artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre, will direct the Guthrie production. Seattle Rep will announce today that Esbjornson will restage the play as part of the Rep’s season in November.

“I’m just so honored,” Levy said of his play’s double outing.

“ ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a piece of American history. And I get superstitious, so I don’t want to ruin its future chances, but we’re hoping that it’s going to have a nice healthy life in the American theater.”

-- Lynne Heffley