About the Playwright
Born in 1957 and raised in New Jersey, Paul Rudnick's first play was Poor Little Lambs starring a young Kevin Bacon, aside Bronson Pinchot and Blanche Baker. Also a novelist, Rudnick wrote Social Disease, a satirical tale of NY night life; and I'll Take It, a tribute to his mother's love of shopping. In the 1980s, Rudnick moved into the top floor of a Greenwich townhouse, which was once the home of legendary stage and screen actor, John Barrymore. This experience gave him the inspiration to write I Hate Hamlet the play being celebrated today at The Dunes Summer Theatre. Rudnick went on to write Sister Act in 1992 and Addams Family Values in 1993. In 1993 he also wrote Jeffrey, which is described as a comedy about AIDS. While at first no theatre would showcase this play, it later went on to win the presigious Obie Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the John Gassner Playwrighting Award. Rudnick's later plays include The Naked Eye; The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told; God Made Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve; Valhalla; Regrets Only; The New Century; The Gay Agenda; and My Husband.
Notes from Our Director
Welcome to the world of famous stage and screen legend John Barrymore. With this production we aim to bring a light-hearted and fun comedy to life on stage at The Dunes Summer Theatre. Barrymore began his acting career on stage, before abandoning theatre for Hollywood where he first starred in silent movies. As technology improved, he went on to have a prolific career on the silver screen. He was famously known to be a womanizer (married four times), as well as a man who enjoyed his cocktails. In I Hate Hamlet, Barrymore returns as a ghost to share his skills as perhaps the greatest Hamlet of all time. In his effort to tutor young TV star, Andrew Rally, on how to play Hamlet, he shares the roles' secret to success lies in "tights".
John Barrymore and the works of William Shakespeare serve as recurring themes in The Dunes Summer Theatre's 2016 productions: first in RED, our season opener, where a young apprentice is asked by famous abstract expressionist painter, Mark Rothko, to "at least recite Shakespeare" and in Barrymore's Ghost, a stage reading slated for August.
The play's music is an original score, with sound design created by Dan Schaaf.
