Giant News: Singing Jett Rink Getting Closer to Making His Dallas Theater Center Debut

​Back in April we learned that New York's Public Theater and the Dallas Theater Center would team up to present Michael John LaChuisa and Sybille Pearson's potentially very-big-deal musical-theater adaptation of Giant, which, befitting so mammoth a novel, ran around four hours during its '09 debut at the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia. But there was little else to say nine months ago; all the DTC knew then was that Leslie Benedict and Jett Rink wouldn't grace the local stage till the 2011-'12 season, which won't be announced for a few more months.

But this afternoon, The New York Times offers an update: Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public, tells Patrick Healy they're presently workshopping the piece -- and have thus far trimmed about an hour from the monster musical, which is very good news. And right now, at least, Michael Greif is directing -- and he's the same guy responsible for the original Broadway production of Rent. As for when it'll debut in Dallas -- "next winter." And then? "How fast we'll go from Dallas to New York City depends on how much progress we make on the show between now and then," Eustis tells The Times. Till then, then, a sneak peek from the '09 production follows on the other side.