Screenhead

A two-character play is in develop as a feature film adaptation of “Blackbird,” with playwright David Harrower aboard to script the drama about the confrontation between a middle-aged man and the then-underage girl with whom he had a relationship years earlier.

“Blackbird” premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, and then transferred to London’s West End, where as a well-received run won the 2007 Olivier Award for new play. Then, that same year it was brought to Off Broadway by Manhattan Theater Club in a staging directed by Joe Mantello and starring Jeff Daniels, whom I think is a wonderful actor, and Alison Pill.

Variety offers some of tidbits about the play; such as in 2007, Cate Blanchett directed the play’s Australian premiere for the Sydney Theater Company, while next summer, a production  top billing “CSI” star William L. Petersen is scheduled to play Chicago’s Victory Gardens.

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One of my favorite directors, Taylor Hackford, which I wish would do more movies, is taking on a film project about the early years of Tennessee Williams — one of my favorite playwrights. 

Robin Shushan wrote the screenplay, which tells of Williams unstable and tormenting family, telling of his scornful father, conflicts, sexuality and his sister who was institutionalized and brutalized with an ice pick through the eye lids tearing the brain, a psychiatric treatment called a lobotomy.  A life that fuel such notable plays as “Suddenly Last Summer,” “Street Car Named Desire” and “A Glass Menagerie.”

No date is set yet for production, casting still needs to be done.

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