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Ben Lawver as Frost and David S. Hopcroft as Nixon

 

 

PUTNAM — The Theatre of Northeastern Connecticut at the Bradley Playhouse will present “Frost/Nixon, the powerful dramatization of the events that led to the television interviews between Richard Nixon and David Frost in 1977. The show opens May 30 and runs for three weekends. 

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. May 30, 31, June 6, 7, 13 and 14 and at 2 p.m. June 1, 8 and 15. Tickets are $17 for adults and $14 for seniors and students.  All seats are reserved. Reservations may be made with a major credit card online at www.thebradleyplayhouse.org or by calling 860-928-7887. Tickets may be purchased at the theater box office, either before the performance or at the door.

Directed by Carl Mercier, “Frost/Nixon”  takes excerpts from personal accounts, historic documents, and actual transcripts to build a story of two powerful figures. Even in disgrace, Richard Nixon was the quintessential politician. David Frost also understood the power of the story, but also understood that television had begun to change forever the way those stories would need to be told. 

Featuring Ben Lawver as Frost and David S. Hopcroft as Nixon, the Bradley Playhouse production boasts a strong cast of veteran local actors, including Bill Corriveau, Tom Moody, Chris Ruta, David Smith, Emily John, Jon Loux, Branden Grant and Ashley Bressette.

Nearly 40 years ago, on Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon appeared on national television to resign the Presidency. 

Three years later, beginning in March of 1977, Nixon sat down to tape a series of interviews with British interviewer David Frost. Although the interviews covered the whole of Nixon’s presidency, and spent three-fourths of their time detailing Nixon’s considerable record of foreign policy and domestic achievements, and equally considerable, and controversial, failures, their most lasting legacy was the interview dealing with the already iconic Watergate scandal.  But the interviews themselves almost didn’t happen at all.

Now, as the nation approaches the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, the Bradley Playhouse is presenting “Frost/Nixon,” Peter Morgan’s dramatic depiction of the backstory to the interviews, from the evening of the President’s resignation speech to the climactic moment when Frost asks Nixon whether his actions following the Watergate break-in amounted to more than mistakes, but were in fact a criminal cover-up.