Broadway's "Other Desert Cities" and a Brooklyn "A Bright Room Called Day" Take On Political Fracture
A revival of Jon Robin Baitz's 2010 play "Other Desert Cities" on Broadway sets its action in Palm Springs in December 2004, in the sandstone home of Republican grandees Polly and Lyman Wyeth, a retired screenwriter and a former Hollywood cowboy turned government ambassador. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ed Harris play the couple; Joe Keery appears as their son Trip, a reality-TV producer, and Allison Janney plays Polly's estranged sister Silda, newly out of rehab. Lily Rabe plays Brooke, the daughter whose tell-all manuscript about a radical brother's death drives the plot. Two nights later, a small production of Tony Kushner's 1987 debut "A Bright Room Called Day," directed by Rachel Gita Karp, was staged in a Crown Heights town house, with the audience seated among Berlin bohemians toasting New Year's Eve, 1932. The cast included Molly Rose Heller as Agnes, Jonathan Bock, Portal Rose and Aja Downing. Kushner's play premiered in San Francisco four years before "Angels in America"; its Zillah character was reworked in a 2019 production featuring a counterpart named Xillah.
Key facts
- "Other Desert Cities" is a 2010 play by Jon Robin Baitz, set in Palm Springs in December 2004
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ed Harris star as Polly and Lyman Wyeth in the Broadway revival
- Joe Keery plays Trip Wyeth; Lily Rabe plays Brooke; Allison Janney plays Silda
- Tony Kushner's "A Bright Room Called Day" debuted in 1987 and is set in Berlin in the 1930s
- Rachel Gita Karp directed the Crown Heights production in a Brooklyn town house
- Kushner's play premiered in San Francisco four years before "Angels in America"
- A 2019 staging reworked the Zillah character, adding a figure named Xillah
- The Brooklyn cast included Molly Rose Heller, Jonathan Bock, Portal Rose and Aja Downing
Entities
Artists
- Jon Robin Baitz
- Joe Keery
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- Ed Harris
- Allison Janney
- Lily Rabe
- Tony Kushner
- Rachel Gita Karp
- Molly Rose Heller
- Jonathan Bock
- Portal Rose
- Aja Downing
- Barry Goldwater
- Ronald Reagan
- Roy Cohn
- Zohran Mamdani
- John Benjamin Hickey
- Scott Pask
- Joe Mantello
- Edward Albee
- Brad Hall
- Judith Louis-Dreyfus
- Gérard Louis-Dreyfus
- Matthew Monzon
- Romy Soleimani
- Sonya Meesh
- Jacqui Bennett
- Laïla Ibrahim
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Matthew Broderick
- James Wilkie Broderick
- Bradley Whitford
- Ina Garten
- J.J. Abrams
- Michael Kors
- Lance LePere
- Annie Leibovitz
- Andy Cohen
- Brad Goreski
- Bryan Cranston
- Kelly Ripa
- Mark Consuelos
- Margo Martindale
- Richard Schiff
- Kate Walsh
- Busy Philipps
- Bryan Lourd
- Amy Madigan
- John Slattery
- David Marshall Grant
- Dominic Fumusa
- Arian Moayed
- Dan Bucatinsky
- Chris Perfetti
- Kenneth Lonergan
- J. Smith-Cameron
- Isabel Allende
- Lena Dunham
- Cameron Crowe
- Joan Didion
- Beyoncé
- Emilio Madrid
- Andy Henderson
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Christian Siriano
- Wiederhoeft
- Chloe
Institutions
- Netflix
- Stranger Things
- Angels in America
- The New Yorker
- Hudson Theater
- Lincoln Center
- Knopf
- Paramount+
- The West Wing
- Djo
- Carol Ai Studio Tailors
- AL Studio
- Hudson Theatre
- Cipriani 42nd Street
- Delacorte Theater
- Vogue
- Chloe
- The Run-Through
- Wiser Than Me
Locations
- Palm Springs
- United States
- California
- Sag Harbor
- Crown Heights
- Brooklyn
- New York
- San Francisco
- Berlin
- Germany
- Texas
- New York City
- Washington, DC
- Fort Worth
- Italy
- Central Park