Pam Williams Productions has acquired motion picture rights to Josh Ravetchs critically acclaimed stage play One November Yankee. The play, which is currently running thru January 5, 2013 at the NoHo Arts Center, stars veteran actors Lorreta Swit and Harry Hamlin as siblings who discover the wreckage of a single engine plane crash years after the accident has occurred.
The play follows three sets of siblings as each interacts with the downed aircraft over time from the crash itself, to the discovery, to an artists installation based on the event.
Weve often discussed the cinematic quality of the play and we were thrilled when Pam Williams and her team saw the stage production and responded to the characters and themes of the sudden and unexpected twists and turns that life can take, says Ravetch.
I have been a fan of Joshs work ever since he wrote a television pilot for Laura and I a few years back, said Williams, who for the past 11 years served as Laura Ziskins producing partner.
Williams just wrapped principal photography on Lee Daniel’s The Butler starring Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey and an ensemble, star-studded cast including Robin Williams, Melissa Leo, James Marsden, John Cusack, Liev Schreiber, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey and Vanessa Redgrave. The Weinstein Company will distribute next fall.
When I saw Josh’s latest play, I knew this was the perfect project for us. It follows six characters all unexpectedly tied together though random events that is unlike anything Ive seen before on the stage or screen. It will make a tremendous movie!
Ravetch is a Writer/Director and a graduate of the Stella Adler Conservatory in Manhattan, where he took over Ms. Adler’s signature script-interpretation classes before assuming the post as artistic director at the Stella Adler Conservatory West. Ravetch’s play, “The Astronomer” was performed at The Pasadena Playhouse with Academy Award winner, Shirley Jones in the title role of “The Astronomer.” The play came on the heels of the project Ravetch recently co-wrote, “Step in Time – a Musical Memoir” with stage and screen icon, Dick Van Dyke. He directed the world premiere production of the play at The Geffen Playhouse with Van Dyke starring. The play opened in December 2010.
In 2007, Ravetch collaborated with actress/writer Carrie Fisher and directed her in the world premiere smash hit, “Wishful Drinking,” Ms. Fisher’s one-woman-show at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse in the 2006/2007 season. That play enjoyed an extended run on Broadway at Studio 54 and was filmed by HBO and adapted into an HBO special.
(Photo Credit: Rob Arbogast)
