THE NEW YORK POST
June 11, 2000Page 6: Spacey Strikes out at rival 'Cobb' by RICHARD JOHNSON with PAULA FROELICH and CHRIS WILSON
A TINY Manhattan theater company is blaming Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey for killing its production of "Cobb" just days before opening night. Thomas Sullivan, artistic director of GreenLight Theatreworks, secured the rights to put on "Cobb" in the basement of St. Mark's Church in April, but was forced to shut down after Spacey financed the extension of a rival production of the play starring Spacey's pal Matthew Mabe.
The Dramatists Play Service revoked Sullivan's contract to put on "Cobb," about crusty baseball legend Ty Cobb, before it was to open on June 2, citing a Spacey-financed extension of a commercial run of "Cobb" at Theater 3, from May 21 to June 4. Now, Spacey and the play's other producers are close to booking their version of "Cobb" at a bigger venue.
Mabe, who will reprise his role of the young Ty Cobb at the new location, was an understudy last year in "The Iceman Cometh," in which Spacey starred. A steamed Sullivan charges that his version of the 1989 drama by Lee Blessing was put on ice just because Spacey wrote a check to keep his friend's production going.
"Kevin Spacey and the producers for the Theater 3 play didn't want our show to continue; they didn't want any other competition out there," Sullivan told PAGE SIX. "Now, I've had my rights revoked and I'm out $6,000 of my own money that I've already spent [on the production]." Sullivan says that since the Spacey-sanctioned "Cobb" is a commercial production, his non-profit theater group's "non-professional" rights were superseded. "I don't think I have much recourse," he said, "but I think they're being a little paranoid. We're not a threat to them at all. We're just a basement production with 40 seats."
Larry Hirschorn, artistic director of the Melting Pot Theater Company which is producing the Spacey-sanctioned "Cobb," admits the star pumped in some much-needed cash. "He saw it, wrote us a check and extended our show," said Hirschorn, who claimed he was unaware of the GreenLight snub. "[Spacey] is going to be one of the producers when we continue the play. We're looking at theaters and raising money for the right theater. We're looking at everything, Broadway and Off-Broadway." Spacey's spokesperson declined to comment. Staffers at the Dramatists Play Service did not return calls.
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Driving Mr. Spacey!: The positively untrue life and times of Kevin Spacey,
with a few real facts thrown in for fun.
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