Alan Rosenberg's new show"Partners"

Delaware Theatre Company Teams With Broadway Producer Bill Haber on Partners, Sept. 15-Oct. 3

By Kenneth Jones
Date:25 Aug 2004

Delaware Theatre Company, the state's only resident professional troupe, opens its 2004-2005 season Sept. 15 with the world premiere of Allan Katz's Partners, co-produced with veteran Broadway producer Bill Haber and his Ostar Enterprises.

The comedy will star Alan Rosenberg and Vyto Ruginis in a tale of "Norm and Jack, business partners in the rag trade barely clinging to the bottom rung of the fashion ladder," according to the DTC announcement. "They specialize in cheap knock-offs of last year's styles, sewn from cheap materials for cheap women. Jack is the sensitive, long suffering designer, fighting to maintain the slightest shred of artistic integrity. Norm is his foul-mouthed, draconian counterpart, running the business always with an eye out for more corners to cut. Together they've been squabbling and bickering for 15 years, through good times and bad, but mostly bad."

After Jack's month-long vacation stretches into six, "he finally returns from Europe a completely changed man," and "things will never be business as usual between these two partners again."

Partners marks the first Delaware Theatre Company production under the leadership of newly appointed producing director, Anne Marie Cammarato.

"Partners is a great beginning to a new era in DTC history," she said in a statement. "It's wonderful to start my first season with a comedy that Wilmington audiences are sure to love. It is my hope to make this the first of many world premieres at the Delaware Theatre Company."

The cast also includes Rich Duva, Bill Salunga, Eve Sigall and one actress to be announced.

Designers are Nick Embree (scenic), Millie Hiibel (costume), Shannon Zura (light and sound).

Writer Allan Katz is a past winner of a Drama Desk Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical for Song of Singapore. He began his writing career on the classic television comedy, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." He then went on to write, direct and produce such other television classics as "M*A*S*H," "All in the Family," "Roseanne," "Rhoda" and "Sanford and Son."

Partners is directed by Zane Buzby. Actor Alan Rosenberg appeared as Eli Levinson in TV's "Civil Wars" and later reprised in the final season of "L.A. Law." He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and made his Off-Broadway debut in 1978 in A Prayer for My Daughter. He first appeared on Broadway in Lost in Yonkers.

Vyto Ruginis' credits include the movies "Auto Focus," "The Fast and The Furious," "The Devil's Advocate," "A Thousand Miles" and "The Insider." He made his Broadway debut in 1983 as a member of the original cast of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing.

Preview performances for Partners are Sept. 15, 16 and 17 at 8 PM. The play opens Sept. 18 at 8 PM and runs through Oct. 3.

Ticket prices are $23-$43. DTC is at 200 Water Street in Wilmington, DE. For more information, call (302) 594 1100 or visit www.delawaretheatre.org.

Producer Bill Haber's Broadway credits include Proof, The Scarlet Pimpernel, High Society, The Green Bird, Freak, Dirty Blonde, Bea Arthur, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, The Smell of the Kill, Amour, Imaginary Friends and the revivals of Jumpers, 1776, The Iceman Cometh, Hedda Gabler, Dance of Death, Noises Off and Man of La Mancha. His productions were nominated for eleven Tony, eight Outer Critic Circle and nine Drama Desk awards, winning one Tony Award, one Outer Critic Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize.