Adam Rapp's "Red Light Winter" to Hit Silver Screen; "Blackbird," Too

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 12:41am

Ever-busy playwright Adam Rapp, who is the director of the Flea Theater's current production of Los Angeles, will see two of his plays make the stage-to-screen jump.

Rapp told Playbill.com that Red Light Winter, which played an Obie-winning run at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2006, will be produced for the screen by Scott Rudin. Rudin and Paramount Pictures produced the show's Off-Broadway run with Robyn Goodman, Roger Berlind and Stuart Thompson. Rapp, who is still working on the screenplay, said he would like to use the original stage cast — Gary Wilmes, Christopher Denham and Lisa Joyce — but no official casting decisions have been made. Rapp will direct the film.

Red Light Winter, according to press notes for the Off-Broadway run, "follows two men and a woman in very foreign territory. College friends Davis and Matt spend a wild, unforgettable evening in Amsterdam’s Red Light District with a beautiful young prostitute, Christina. They find that their lives have changed forever when their bizarre love triangle plays out in unexpected ways a year later in the East Village." The play was a 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Another of Rapp's plays, Blackbird, will make its screen debut March 12 at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX. Paul Sparks, who starred in the play's original run at the Edge Theatre Company, heads the cast of the film, which was directed by Rapp. The film's cast also includes Gillian Jacobs, Michael Shannon, Danny Hoch, Annie Parisse, Gary Wilmes, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Danny Mastrogiorgio, Dallas Roberts and Rosemarie Dewitt.
Adam Rapp's "Red Light Winter" to Hit Silver Screen; "Blackbird," Too

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 12:44am

I bumped up an old Red Light Winter thread earlier with this, but I'll repeat what I said there. I think Red Light Winter on film sounds really promising, and I'm glad that Rapp is going to direct it himself.

I also think Rosemarie Dewitt is really talented. Gillian Jacobs was in Cagelove, which Rapp direced but didn't write -- I had mixed feelings on her, but I think it was a flaw in the character less so than it was in her acting. I think Blackbird is the only one of Rapp's plays that I haven't read, though.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 2:49am

Red Light Winter is a good play (if one of the most depressing things I have ever read), but would need to be altered a good deal to work as a film--i.e., you would have to show the scenes before the play in the red light district, and stuff like that. It could work though...

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 2/28/07 at 3:01am

Adam Rapp has directed movies before; I'm pretty sure he's aware of what he needs to change to portray it on a different medium.

[renthead1223]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 12:17am

Has anyone seen it at Studio Theater? I won't be able to make it and I haven't heard from anyone who's seen it.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 12:56am

I don't get the hype around the play. I read it, and I don't really see what everyone was talking about.