INTERVIEW: Director George Loizides on HTC’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?”

Hampton Theatre Company legend George Loizides is directing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?” opening May 22 and running through June at the Quogue Community Hall. This show is perhaps one of the most celebrated Edward Albee works in contemporary theatre. The production will cap off the Hampton Theatre Company’s 40th season. Director George Loizides, in an interview with Hamptons.com, said he is very excited about the opportunity to direct the three-act play.

He said, “Andrew (Botsford) and Rosemary(Cline) always wanted to do it. And being that it’s the 40th season of the company, we thought it would be something just right to sort of top off a really great season we’ve had so far.” Mr. Loizides, who has always been a beacon of artistic energy, discussed the positive flow of putting the show together so far. “We’ve been rehearsing for about a week and a half, and one of the positives is that we brought someone new into the company from New York, a young actor, just sort of starting out in the professional world.” Then he added, “Another positive is the discoveries we’re making is that there’s a lot of humor in the play.”

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” focuses on the festering conflicts and shared traumas connecting George, a brilliant but brooding professor of history, and Martha, his disillusioned wife and the daughter of the president of the college where George works. Mr. Loizides lamented, “Everybody thinks of the Elizabeth Taylor, Richard movie, which had some humor; this is a combination of sort of rapier wind and sort of rapier carving up of repartee. I mean, we are being true to the script, we haven’t cut anything, you’re not allowed to. We are just making discoveries about the characters and how they interact and why they interact.” Loizides did mention, at the end of his life, Playwright Edward Albee edited out about seven or eight pages from the end of the play “for whatever reason.”

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” was first staged in 1962; the play won the 1963 Tony Award as Best Play and the 1962-63 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play. It has been revived on Broadway in 1976, 2005, 2012, and 2020. Then there is the epic 1966 film adaptation, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, which received 13 Oscar nominations and won five. It is one of only two films to be nominated in every eligible category at the Academy Awards.

Director Loizides pointed out that “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” features a versatile cast of four seasoned actors. Andrew Botsford (George) and Rosemary Cline (Martha.) Andrew Botsford and Rosemary Cline are founding members of the Hampton Theatre Company, which was founded four decades ago, and have appeared in dozens of the company’s productions over the years. Also in the show is Amanda Griemsmann (Honey), whose HTC credits include “Sylvia,” “A Comedy of Tenors,” and “Don’t Dress for Dinner,“ with Cameron Eastland (Nick) making his HTC debut in this production.

Performances of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?“ will run from May 22 through June 8. Two “talkbacks“ with the cast will be offered to ticketholders immediately following the May 30 and June 6 Friday evening performances.