Thanks for the update, Bette.
I think Mr. Vitale needs help -- and I don't mean just a drama coach and speech coach. (The director sounds like he has some issues, too -- although truth be told, I've heard some British directors described similarly!)
My favorite quote from the article is:
"how does a man with no stage training and a poor command of the English language wind up playing Hamlet in the middle of Hollywood? And what marketing genius suggested $35,000 billboards to advertise an 85-seat theater production? Yet, given such extravagant publicity, why didn't Hamlet learn his lines?"
But the scariest lines are the final quote from Vitale:
" 'I'm doing a national tour with a new play, a musical, and we're going to go all over the country,' he says. 'It's an Equity production with the same investors, they're big supporters. It's called Dreams.' "
Guess that Simon Russel Beale (or whatever) "Hamlet" I saw a couple of years ago wasn't quite so bad after all ...