{"id":22001,"date":"2010-09-30T08:22:51","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T12:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=22001"},"modified":"2011-05-31T11:41:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T15:41:33","slug":"on-broadway-dan-lauria-%e2%80%9991-to-star-as-lombardi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/09\/on-broadway-dan-lauria-%e2%80%9991-to-star-as-lombardi\/","title":{"rendered":"On Broadway: Dan Lauria \u201991 to Star as Lombardi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Dan<\/a>
Dan Lauria \u201991 M.F.A. stars in "Lombardi," opening Oct. 21 at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre. Photo by Joan Marcus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While best known as an actor \u2013 particularly for his television role as Jack Arnold in the Emmy Award-winning show \u201cThe Wonder Years\u201d \u2013 Dan Lauria \u201991 M.F.A. has dedicated a considerable amount of his career to advocating for new American playwrights.<\/p>\n

So the opportunity to make his Broadway debut this fall in a new play is particularly appealing to Lauria, who has the title role of the legendary NFL football coach Vince Lombardi in \u201cLombardi<\/a>\u201d at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Performances began on Sept. 23 in New York City, with opening night set for Oct. 21.<\/p>\n

The play, written by Academy Award winner and Steppenwolf Theatre Company member Eric Simonson, is based on the book “When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss. It is directed by Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail, and one of the play\u2019s producers is the National Football League.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the play is successful here it will help regional theater,\u201d says Lauria, who served for 10 years as the artistic director of the Playwright\u2019s Kitchen Ensemble of Los Angeles, which produced more than 450 public readings of new plays. \u201cThere are a lot of people who have never seen a play who will go see it [because of the subject]. It\u2019s an important play. Critics haven\u2019t accepted a sports story since \u2018The Great White Hope.\u2019 This is a theme that a lot of writers would like to explore. It\u2019s a good story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauria played football during his undergraduate years at Southern Connecticut State University, when the acting bug bit. After serving in the Marine Corps, he enrolled at UConn, where he came under the mentorship of Cecil Hinkel, head of the theatre department.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how much I learned from Dr. Hinkel. He put on a show every class,\u201d Lauria says. \u201cIt was like W.C. Fields teaching the history of play writing. His lectures on criticism were funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauria says his television work has allowed him to champion American writing for the stage, and allowed him to perform around the nation and off-Broadway for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTV is bread and butter. I\u2019m very proud of \u2018The Wonder Years,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s considered a classic. We did our job and did it well. It allowed me to do theater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauria\u2019s preparation for the role of Lombardi took him to Green Bay, Wisc., where the legend of the man whose name is on the Super Bowl trophy began to form after he spent many years as a high school coach and an NFL assistant coach. The actor spoke to Lombardi\u2019s former players on the Green Bay Packers, to friends of the coach\u2019s family, and to former players of the Washington Redskins, Lombardi\u2019s last team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played Jimmy Hoffa [an American labor union leader who was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and fraud] last year, but there weren\u2019t too many people who wanted to talk about it,\u201d he says. \u201cWith Lombardi it was easier, because so many of the players were willing to talk. I talked with Bart Starr, Sam Huff, and others. It was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauria says there are many small details that he uses in the performance with Judith Light, the Emmy-Award winning actress who plays Lombardi\u2019s wife Marie, that help bring authenticity to the characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the personal stories that are not in the book that help you the most,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are things we do in the play that are not explained. Vince and Marie used to lock pinkies [as a sign of affection]. Judith and I do that in the play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauria says Lombardi\u2019s drive for perfection took a toll on his family, and that comes through in the performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went to mass every day and he prayed for patience. The toll of his quest for perfection affected his family,\u201d he says. \u201cJudith is so good as Marie, and she brings that part of the play home. You could write a 90-minute play on the toll it took on his family. \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An alum makes his Broadway debut in the title role of a new play about the legendary NFL coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-22001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 12:29:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35986,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22001\/revisions\/35986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22001"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=22001"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}