\n<\/p>\n
Chris Domig was ready to throw in the towel.<\/p>\n
After a year-and-a-half-long search, a church chapel in Gramercy Park was the only affordable space Domig, the artistic director of the Off Off Broadway company Sea Dog Theater<\/a>, had been able to find to mount a production of \u201cTuesdays With Morrie<\/a>.\u201d Chairs would have to be arranged on a set of risers on the altar. The props would be a piano, a couple of chairs, a walker and a wheelchair.<\/p>\n The company also had almost no advertising budget.<\/p>\n But it did have Len Cariou, an elder statesman of the theater who in 1979 won a Tony Award for originating the role of Sweeney Todd on Broadway. He would play Morrie, a former sociology professor who, after receiving a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., reconnects with one of his students in what becomes a series of weekly meetings.<\/p>\n Cariou, also known for his turns in musicals like \u201cA Little Night Music\u201d and \u201cApplause,\u201d had been taken with the character of Morrie ever since he read the 1997 memoir by Mitch Albom on which the 2002 play is based.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI said, \u2018One day, I\u2019d love to play that part,\u2019\u201d Cariou, 84, said last month during a joint interview with Domig at St. George\u2019s Episcopal Church, where the recently extended \u201cTuesdays With Morrie\u201d is set to run through April 20. \u201cIt\u2019s such a rich role in a show that asks, \u2018What if despair and death are not the end? What if there\u2019s something more?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But one major hurdle remained, Domig said: How were they going to pull off the play with only a handful of props?<\/p>\n Cariou didn\u2019t miss a beat.<\/p>\n \u201cLen was just like, \u2018You know what, we don\u2019t need any of this,\u2019\u201d Domig said. \u201c\u2018We can do it as a memory play that takes place in Morrie\u2019s head.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That attitude is typical of Cariou, said Erwin Maas, the director of \u201cTuesdays With Morrie\u201d and Cariou\u2019s longtime friend and neighbor in West New York, N.J. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t need a big theater or feel like anything is beneath him,\u201d Maas said in a recent phone conversation. \u201cWhat drives him is a passion for the work.\u201d<\/p>\n