January is a bitch

http://www.playwrightshorizons.org/mainstage.asp

In the theater world, January is a cruel, cruel bitch. Productions hang on through the holidays hoping the hordes of tourists will save their ailing shows, but come January, the closing notices go up all over town. Bonnie & Clyde died a violent death. Lysistrata Jones is giving it up this weekend. The relatively unloved Relative Speaking slinks away at the end of the month. It's a sad time for the already underemployed and underpaid. But it opens up theaters for new shows that might do better. And it opens up my schedule, too.

Poorly reviewed Close Up Space, the editorially (un)inspired play starring David Hyde Pierce and Rosie Perez, is closing up early, so yesterday I received notice that my ticket has been canceled. In hunting for something to take its place, I was reading through Playbill.com's listings and almost choked on my Coke Zero when I read that Bobby Steggert and Michael Esper are starring in a play together at Playwrights Horizons, and that I can go see it on my now-free Sunday afternoon.

How is it possible that Michael Esper is going to be in a play and I didn't know? How is it that Michael Esper is going to be in a play WITH Bobby Steggert and I didn't know??? And in a play by Leslye Headland, the woman who gave me Topher from Dollhouse (Fran Kranz) and Fat Pat from Wonderfalls/Shitbrick from the American Pie movies (Eddie Kaye Thomas) as sleazy guys getting lucky at a bachelorette party!

I screamed my question to the Twitterverse and many of my other theater friends hadn't heard of it either. But Steggert himself confirmed the news! So of course I bought the ticket immediately. And now, today, there's an article on Playbill announcing the casting.

In summary: The theater world took away David Hyde Pierce in a mediocre play about an editor (have I mentioned that I'm a book editor?) but it gave in return a chance to see Bobby Steggert and Michael Esper on stage together in a play that's likely to be really good. I call that a pretty big win for me.