The Tamesis
March 22 has always been an auspicious day in the transatlantic theater world, marking the birthdays of Stephen Sondheim and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. But when a dazzling array of actors, writers, producers, directors and generous patrons of the performing arts from both sides of the ocean gathered at Anna Wintour’s Greenwich Village home on Sunday, they were celebrating another of the world’s most consequential agenda-setting forces: the Royal Court Theater in Sloane Square.
Wintour joined actor John Lithgow and director Nicholas Hytner at a joyful fundraising cocktail party for “The Royal Court,” now in its 70th season and its third under artistic director David Byrne, himself an accomplished director and playwright.
6pm Shortly after clicking, the living room floor of Wintour’s Greenwich Village townhouse was packed with guests (and delicious snacks), including Louisa Jacobson, Ivi Getty, Huma Abedin, Charles Porch, Robert Denning, Ann Andre Rockefeller, Sophia Herring, Paul Hankel, JK Brown, Eric Dieffenbacher, Robert Soros, Jamie Singer Soros, Doron Weber, Alexander Hankin, and Pam Hester de la Pietra. Also in the crowd were actors and creative team members behind the scenes huge— Mark Rosenblatt’s thrilling Olivier Award-winning drama about children’s author Roald Dahl and his scathing anti-Semitism, starring Lithgow, Aya Cash, Elliot Levey and Rachael Stirling. The play, which premieres at the Royal Court Theater in autumn 2024, transferred to the Harold Pinter Theater in London’s West End about a year ago and is scheduled to open at Broadway’s Music Box Theater the following night.
Lithgow, who stood side by side with his wife, historian Mary Yeager, likened the transformation in an interview with theater producer Fiona Rudin hugeShaping its three stages into a “kaleidoscope—change a stone, everything changes.” (Kash has joined the production at the Harold Pinter Theater; Stella Everett and David Manis have joined in New York.) Rudin, in turn, noted that she had never met director Nicholas Hytner—who last directed a Broadway show in 2012, when one man, two governors Also played in the music box – very relaxing.
Others feel a little nervous. “I’m glad to be here because it stops me sitting at home and worrying,” Levy told me with a laugh. Rosenblatt’s candor is equally admirable. “Overall, I’m very nervous,” he said. “It’s a weird thing because we’ve done it twice, but you have to prove yourself every time.” His wife, journalist Amy Abrahams, on the other hand, seemed decidedly less worried. “What you get from transferring is everyone is more engaged,” she observed. “Every performance is smarter — and smarter anyway.”
After about 30 minutes of exchanges, as the party went downstairs, Wintour stood before the assembled guests and delivered a welcome speech. “A glance at the list of plays that premiered at the Royal Court Theater will marvel at the range of British drama, from Rocky Horror arrive top girls, from not me arrive ferryman,” she said. “But as David Hare recently reminded me, it was Arthur Miller who said it, and until the Royal Court Theater and look back angrilyBritish theater “Birthright” premiered there in 1956. Perhaps that’s because Mr Miller was tired of London newspapers calling him Mr Munro. “
