The Pitmen Painters
Opening Night: September 30, 2010
Closing: December 12, 2010
Theater: Samuel J. Friedman
The Pitmen Painters tells the story of a group of Ashington coal miners who, in 1934, hire a professor to teach an art appreciation evening class.
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September 30, 2010
The debating never stops for the title characters of “The Pitmen Painters,” Lee Hall’s feisty adult education class — I mean history play — about a group of aesthetically adventurous miners in Northern England. These are among the questions posed, and answered and considered and fought over, many times.
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September 30, 2010
What do Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters — now getting its American premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre — have in common? Both are about Yorkshire in England’s once mine-dotted north and both are penned by Lee Hall, who was raised there and who has written another exciting tribute to a working-class area that was troubled then and now no longer exists.
READ THE REVIEWSeptember 30, 2010
Lee Hall’s "The Pitmen Painters" is a bit like the art made by its characters: Whatever it lacks in technique it more than makes up for in expression. If the characters are sometimes too predictable and the sentiment a bit thick, that doesn’t prevent the two-and-a-half-hour play from being thoroughly entertaining.
READ THE REVIEWSeptember 30, 2010
Lee Hall, who told a story of dreams and coal mining in "Billy Elliot," has returned to Broadway with familiar themes. Hall’s "The Pitmen Painters," now playing just two blocks from where adorable Billy makes his grand jetes, is another tale of goodhearted, ordinary people from a hardscrabble, mining town in northeast England who tap into their inner artist.
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September 30, 2010
Here it is, only the beginning of a new theater season, and Broadway already has a feel-good — make that a feel-great — hit in "The Pitmen Painters." Scribe Lee Hall draws on the same inspirational themes that served him so well in "Billy Elliot the Musical" with this heartbreakingly funny play about a group of Northumberland coal miners who in 1934 sign up for a union-sponsored art appreciation course and become the darlings of the U.K. art set. Max Roberts’ helming is flawless, and bully for Equity for preserving the extraordinary ensemble of character actors from the original British production.
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