Actor and former UCLA basketball player Beau Bridges will portray his former coach, the legendary John Wooden, in the one-man play, “Coach: An Evening with John Wooden.”
Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden is a national treasure, and the stories of his life will soon be coming to Colorado’s Hurst Theater this fall which will star Beau Bridges as the legendary coach that led the Bruns to ten national championships.
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“Coach: An Evening with John Wooden” was an idea conceived by another former UCLA basketball player, Michael Warren, a two-time national champion under Wooden who later turned to acting.
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Warren originally had the idea for a full-length feature and approached writer (and another UCLA alum) John Wilder to pen the project. During its evolution, “Coach” was altered into a one-man play as the story seemed better suited for the theater.
The play will premier on September 18 (with an encore on September 21) at ‘Solo Flights,’ Theater Aspen’s one-person show festival. Bridges will portray the late coach and will tell some of the stories that Wooden has passed down during his lifetime.
Wilder said that he conceived the idea for the play when he reminisced on the times he spent with Wooden in his “Den.” The idea for this play is that the audience will be in the Den with Wooden speaking to them directly.
As for Bridges, his relationship with Wooden goes back to the actor’s playing days. As a kid, Bridges originally wanted to play basketball and was able to play at UCLA under Wooden. Though he only played for one year, the actor remained close with the former coach.
Beau Bridges, a longtime friend of Wooden, will portray the American sports icon, who, in 40 years of coaching high school and college, had only one losing season. https://t.co/6rJqDGHnnu
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 9, 2019
Right now, there are no further plans for performances outside ‘Solo Flights,’ but the Los Angeles Times reported that Wilder said it would be “absolutely wonderful” if the play could come to UCLA’s Geffen Theater.