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Along the way he has been nominated for Tony®, Emmy, and Golden Globe Awards.

Wilson is currently in rehearsals for All My Sons, starring opposite John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, and Katie Holmes, which begins previews at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on September 18.  The play was Arthur Miller’s first commercial success, and it earned him a 1947 Tony Award®.  Ben Pesner caught up with Wilson by phone in late August.

Ben Pesner:  How do you describe All My Sons, and the character you play, Chris Keller?

Patrick Wilson:  It starts out as a very pleasant story about a family living this idyllic life in the Midwest in 1947.  Then you see the cracks, and the deconstruction of the family.  It’s the story of Joe Keller, played by John Lithgow, [a manufacturer] who has gotten away with shipping out faulty, cracked cylinder heads used for fighter planes, specifically P-40s. Twenty of them went down during World War II. 

My character, Chris Keller, is the son of Joe Keller.  He is a very idealistic man who, in the course of the play, becomes practical.  By the end of the play his ideals are questioned and judged.

You are in rehearsal now. This is a process that the audience never gets to see.  What goes on behind those closed doors?

Normally, you rehearse for 4 weeks or so, and then you go into tech.  This process is very different.  We have the benefit of 8 weeks of rehearsal. We’ve spent a lot of time working on the ensemble.  I don’t mean the chorus of the show—we are all a troupe of actors that are all in rehearsal all the time, together. We do a lot of exercises and theatre games dealing with getting to the story of this play.  Usually Arthur Miller plays are done very naturalistically.  We’re questioning that.

How much do you talk about the wartime morality theme in the play, given what’s going on in the world today?

You are now an above-the-title Broadway regular.  Is this where you envisioned you would be when you were a kid?

I don’t think so!  When I was 12, 13, 14, I loved sports. I was going to prep school, and everybody always talked about being a doctor. So for several years I figured I could combine sports and medicine and become a sports-medicine doctor, even though I didn’t know what that was.  Then when I was 15, I decided to do this [i.e., performing].  I didn’t know if I wanted to do musicals or plays or movies. Hollywood seemed so far away to me.  I really had no idea what making movies was about. I just wanted to be an actor.  

A lot of our Broadway Fan Club members live in the Tampa Bay area, where you grew up.

I love Tampa. I go back there whenever I can. All my family is there. My dad is still on the news, and my brother anchors at WTVT as well.  Right now I’m having Tampa Bay Ray fever for our awesome baseball team.  When I was growing up in St. Pete, we didn’t have a team. The Rays came after I went to college, and I always tried to support them even when they were terrible.  I’m proud to say I still have the jersey from their first year, which is funny—purple and teal. 

You are now a New Yorker, so can we continue to count on seeing you on the New York stage?

I hope so. I haven’t done a musical in six years, or a play in three. I’ve lived here for 13 years, and my absence from doing theatre—my not doing musicals—is not for a lack of trying.   Scheduling becomes the real issue.  Coming back to theatre and coming back to New York is like coming home. Theatre is what I grew up doing. It’s in my blood.  Being on stage is like being at home.   

You have an adorable two-year-old son, Kalin.  One of your fellow cast-members, Katie Holmes, has an equally adorable two-year-old daughter, Suri, with her husband, Tom Cruise.  Have the two kids ever met?  Inquiring minds need to know!
 
We have several two-year-olds and other kids in the play’s family.  We’re actually talking about decorating one of the dressing rooms in the theatre for the kids.  Right now, schedules have been very tough for play dates—but we all love play dates.
 
What else would you like Broadway Fan Club members to know about All My Sons?

This is a great play. I don’t say that very often. It’s so well built and structured that the actors are having a complete thrill digging into this material in the rehearsal process. I can’t wait for what we come up with. It’s going to be a really special production.  The play can get very political if that’s what the viewer wants to watch.  Or if they just want to have a good time and watch a great play in a great production, they’ll enjoy that too. 

Get tickets to All My Sons

Equus
A pair of Harry Potter stars headline in Peter Shaffer's powerful drama of a stable boy (Daniel Radcliffe) and the psychiatrist (Richard Griffiths) who tries to unravel the religious and sexual mystery that ensues when the troubled teenager blinds six horses.
Broadhurst Theatre; now in previews prior to a September 25 opening night

Hedda Gabler
Mary-Louise Parker stars in the Henrik Ibsen drama about a woman desperate to escape the confinement of 19th-century social conventions.
American Airlines Theatre; previews begin January 6.

A Man for All Seasons
Frank Langella stars in the first Broadway revival of Robert Bolt's 1962 Tony Award®-winning Best Play.
American Airlines Theatre; previews begin September 12

The Seagull
The first of the playwright Anton Chekhov’s masterworks, The Seagull concerns the romantic entanglements and regrets of a group of actors, writers and artists gathered on a Russian estate.  Kristin Scott Thomas stars as Arkadina, with Peter Sarsgard as Trigorin.
Walter Kerr Theatre; previews begin September 16

Speed-the-Plow
The 20th-anniversary production of David Mamet’s scathing portrait of the film industry and the people who are willing to sell

their souls for sex, fame and fortune. Starring Raúl Esparza, Jeremy Piven, and Elisabeth Moss.
Ethel Barrymore Theatre; previews begin October 3

To Be or Not to Be
Nick Whitby’s black comedy set at the Polski Theatre in Warsaw on the eve of World War II is based on the classic film comedy of the same title.
Samuel J. Friedman/Biltmore Theatre; previews begin September 13

The Musicals

Irving Berlin's White Christmas
A new holiday-season tradition comes to Broadway featuring a hum-able score of Irving Berlin favorites. Two showbiz buddies put on a musical in a picturesque Vermont inn, and find their perfect mates in the bargain.
Marquis Theatre; previews begin November 14

Pal Joey
Stockard Channing, Christian Hoff, and Martha Plimpton star in a revival of the Rodgers & Hart musical.
Studio 54; previews begin November 14

Shrek the Musical
An all-new musical featuring the most beloved swamp-dwelling ogre of all time, based on the story and characters from William Steig’s book Shrek!, as well as the DreamWorks Animation film.  Joining Shrek on his journey from the swamp to the stage are his wisecracking sidekick Donkey, Princess Fiona, Lord Farquaad and a chorus of everybody's favorite fractured fairytale creatures.
Broadway Theatre; previews begin November 8.

13
Featuring an all-teenage cast and a rock score by Jason Robert Brown (Parade), this new musical tells the story of a 13-year-old boy uprooted from his life in New York. He moves to Indiana where he has to make new friends and somehow maneuver his way through the minefield of junior high to become part of the “in” crowd.
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre; previews begin September 16 

Coming Next Month: The Shows on the Road!

Broadway on Broadway®  presented by Continental Airlines is coming to Times Square on September 14th at 11:30am. It's live and it's FREE!

The Broadway Concierge & Ticket Center, the Broadway’s League’s one-

Broadway stars!   The live audience will have a chance to ask questions and get photos and autographs after each taping.

During its first week (September 15-19), the program will be taped at 12:00 noon every day.  After that, tapings take place every Wednesday at noon. The show will air on Sirius at noon on Wednesdays, with repeated play throughout the week.

The Broadway Concierge & Ticket Center’s friendly and knowledgeable staff are experts in customer care. They will help you with all of your ticketing and hospitality needs, including restaurant, hotel and car service reservations, parking information, and much more.   During the week of September 15th, bring a printout of this newsletter and get an exclusive gift with purchase.  In addition, use your Visa card and get an additional gift, the 2008 Zagat Guide for New York City restaurants.

Other special events will take place at the Center throughout September. Click for location and more information.

The Broadway Concierge & Ticket Center is presented by Visa with support provided by the official sponsor, The New York Times.

It’s September, and with students hitting the books once again, we thought this would be a good time to ask Fan Club members to test your Broadway IQ.  All of the following questions involve current Broadway shows in New York and on national tour.  Check your grade by checking out the answer key.

1. What language are the schoolboys in Spring Awakening studying in Act I?

1. English
2. German
3. Greek
4. Latin

2. What subject does Professor Frankenstein teach in The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein?

1. Anatomy
2. Biology
3. Chemistry
4. Dentistry

3. What is the name of the school Danny, Sandy, and their friends attend in the musical Grease?

1. Ridin’ High
2. Riverdale High
3. Rocky Mountain High
4. Rydell High

4. At the beginning of In the Heights, Nina arrives home in upper Manhattan after finishing her freshman year at what West Coast university?

1. UC Berkeley
2. Stanford
3. UCLA
4. USC

5. In Legally Blonde The Musical, college senior Elle Woods pulls out the stops to go to Harvard Law School after graduating from what West Coast university?

1. UC Berkeley
2. Stanford
3. UCLA
4. USC

6. In South Pacific, Lt. Cable sings “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.”  What social ill does he argue is schooled, rather than innate?

1. Avarice
2. Poverty
3. Racism
4. Teen pregnancy

7. In her high school drama class, what object did the character Diana in A Chorus Line (now on national tour) attempt to portray, only to feel “Nothing”?

1. A basketball
2. A blackboard
3. A blueberry pie
4. An ice cream cone

8. Who is Madame Morrible?

1. An aging voice teacher in The Phantom of the Opera
2. Diana’s high school drama teacher in A Chorus Line
3. Mr. Banks’s childhood governess in Mary Poppins
4. The headmistress of Shiz University in Wicked

1. Dodge ball
2. Field hockey
3. Kickball
4. Soccer

10. What does an 11-year-old schoolboy named Billy Elliott stumble into that will change his life?

1. A ballet class
2. A musical about two nobodies who write a musical about writing a musical that moves to Broadway
3. A performance of Hamlet at the Polski Theatre in 1939
4. A stable of blinded horses

11. Who enrolls in Dan Quayle Junior High in Appleton, Indiana?

1. Baby June and Her Newsboys in Gypsy
2. Evan Goldman and the other kids in 13
3. The Knights Who Say “Ni!” in Monty Python’s Spamalot
4. A young Frankie Valle and two of the Four Seasons in Jersey Boys

12. Who sings “What Do You Do with a BA in English?”

1. A flight attendant in Boeing-Boeing who moves to Paris and gets engaged to an American architect (who secretly has two other stewardess fiancées).
2. A puppet named Princeton who is looking for an apartment way out on Avenue Q.
3. A young bride-to-be in Mamma Mia! who tries to figure out which one of her mother’s old flames is her dad.
4. The author of a new Broadway musical version of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

Answer Key

Q:  For shows like Wicked, if anything was to happen to Elphaba mid-performance, who would take over? And how would they paint them green?
—Michaela

A:  We consulted an expert: Wicked’s production stage manager, Marybeth Abel. Here is her response.

“Both witches have standbys that are required to be within a 5-block radius of the theatre during show time.  They always check-in after half-hour [i.e. by 30 minutes to curtain time] with the stage managers so we know where they are.

“Because our Elphaba knows that her standby needs to be 'greenified,' she is usually able to let everyone know before intermission if she will not do the remainder of the show.  This way the standby can get green in plenty of
time.”

If you have a question for the Broadway Concierge, please e-mail us at fanclub@broadway.org and we will answer it in an upcoming issue of the Broadway Fan Club Newsletter.  Don’t forget to include your name and city!

and pose for photos in exchange for donations. This year’s Flea Market takes place on Sunday, September 21 in Shubert Alley, 44-45th Streets west of Broadway (rain date: Sunday, September 28).

screening of rare Hitchcock footage at the Paley Center for Media hosted by the cast; an Alfred Hitchcock Look-a-Like contest; a cast appearance/discussion at the Borders Bookstore in Columbus Circle; and more.  More info…

Oh, What a Beautiful Bandshell!
The family of a legendary Broadway composer is helping the City of New York upgrade a Manhattan park facility.  In 1970 the late Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy, donated funds for the construction of a bandshell in what is now known as Marcus Garvey Park, which is across the street from where Rodgers grew up.  As part of the Harlem park’s revitalization, the Rodgers Family Foundation is contributing $1 million to the renovation of the bandshell, which will result in improved acoustics, new seats and wheelchair-accessible sections.  Rodgers’ music can be heard on Broadway in South Pacific, as well as in the forthcoming Pal Joey.

Kudos for Leguizamo
John Leguizamo, who returns to Broadway this fall in the revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, will receive the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence at the Ninth Annual HOLA (Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors) Awards on September 15.  Leguizamo has previously starred on Broadway in a pair of phenomenally successful one-person shows, Sexaholix and Freak.

Supporting Arts in Education
The Broadway League will honor Shubert Organization chairman Gerald Schoenfeld and NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein at an all-star gala on October 6 that will raise funds for arts education.  The two will receive the League’s inaugural Schoenfeld Vision for Arts in Education Award.

Casting News