A legendary Broadway actor is starring in a New York revival of a beloved play about the relationship between a dying college professor and his former student.
Len Cariou (left) and Chris Domig (right) star in a revival of "Tuesdays with Morrie," being ... [+]
Len Cariou—winner of a Tony Award for best actor in a musical in 1979 for his performance as Sweeney Todd in the Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name, and an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of retired NYPD police commissioner Henry Reagan in the TV series Blue Bloods—is portraying a retired Brandeis University professor battling Lou Gehrig’s disease in a new revival of Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie.
Sea Dog Theater, an Off-Off-Broadway theater company presenting the play, calls it “the humorous and poignant story of career-obsessed journalist Mitch Albom, who 16 years after graduating (from Brandeis University) serendipitously learns that his former sociology professor Morrie (Schwartz) is battling Lou Gehrig’s disease. What starts as a simple visit turns into a weekly pilgrimage and the last class in the meaning of life.”
Cariou, who is 84, portrays the Brandeis professor in this production, while Sea Dog Theater’s artistic director, Chris Domig, portrays his student, Albom, whose 1997 memoir about his relationship with Schwartz became a 1999 TV movie starring Jack Lemmon as the professor and Hank Azaria as his student, with Oprah Winfrey as an executive producer, and, in 2002, a play co-written by Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher.
The Sea Dog Theater production—being performed in a chapel at St. George’s Episcopal Church on Stuyvesant Square—was originally done as a reading in April 2022.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Domig called the response to this reading “effusive, joyous and encouraging.”
He said he chose to stage the current production in the St. George’s chapel because of Sea Dog’s limited resources; a talented jazz pianist, he actually performs as the audience enters the chapel and at the beginning of the play.
This setting, he added, has proven to be “more than we could have ever expected, it is a beautiful space that aids the play in a wonderful way.”
Domig said Cariou was the “only person” with whom he wanted to do the play.
For his part, Cariou—who actually met Albom years ago and told him he wanted to portray Morrie—called the play a “great story, it’s well-written, it’s a tale well-told. I was chomping at the bit—he (Domig) didn’t have to ask me more than once.”
Cariou said he felt chemistry with Domig at the 2022 reading and decided to “see if we can make this work as a production. So we went after it tooth and nail.”
Domig suggested men do not often “cultivate deep friendships and tend not to come to terms with emotion, certainly not with physical closeness,” adding that “the idea of going on a journey with a man who is a friend and a mentor,” Cariou, appealed to him personally, and also could serve audiences.
Cariou called Albom’s and Schwartz’s relationship a “mentorship. Morrie’s faced with the end of a life. He’s got a perspective Mitch can’t possibly have. For Morrie, here’s a chance to do something for this young man that he knew.”
Domig also said the production reflects “so many parallels to the relationship that Len and I have. To be able to do a play where life imitates art and art imitates life is a beautiful thing.”
He also called audiences’ reaction to the production “beyond anything that I’ve ever seen or experienced. It’s so resonating with so many people. In a time when the world is so dark and despairing, it’s not pretending that death and disease are not real. It leads you through that conversation in a hopeful way. That’s what the world needs. I ultimately believe hope and joy and love will win the day.”
Domig also said he hoped the production—which has been selling out performances with long waiting lists for tickets—would eventually move off-Broadway.
The final performance is tomorrow night, April 20.
