TONY SMILES ON TRTC’s ‘BREL’ TROUPE
Actor (and newly minted Tony nominee) Forrest McClendon joins already-Tony’d director Dan Ostling when Two River Theater Company begins its engagement of JACQUES BREL on May 17.
Just hours after Monday night’s announcement of the upcoming 2011-2012 schedule at Two River Theater Company, the Red Bank-based company had some additional, equally exciting news to share an alert that added luster to the forthcoming final production of the current season, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.
On Tuesday, the American Theatre Wing made public the nominees for the 2011 Tony Awards and among the candidates for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical was Forrest McClendon, whose work in the tragicomic Kander-Ebb opus The Scottsboro Boys was one of 11 nominations garnered by the show.
With Boys having closed its initial Broadway run, McClendon is now deep into rehearsals in Red Bank as a member of the ensemble charged with bringing the revue of sharply written cabaret classics by the Belgian Brel to the Red Bank area audience for the first time.
But any hopes that the actor entertained of enjoying sole bragging rights on Bridge Avenue were short-lived, however, when it was announced that the (noncompetitive category) Regional Theatre Tony went this year to Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company a troupe founded by Dan Ostling, the director and scenic designer of TRTC’s Brel.