played Carmen, and Joe Melia played the Chief of Police in this production. On both occasions the RSC performed a version of the play that incorporated scenes and elements from Genet's texts of 1956 and 1960 that do not appear in the French edition of 1962. This version was also used in a production at the Abbey Theatre in New York, which opened on 4 December 1976 and featured Karen Sunde as Irma, Ara Watson as Carmen (later replaced by Carol Fleming), Tom Donaldson as the Chief of Police, and Christopher Martin as the Envoy. Giorgio Strehler directed a production at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan in 1976. Richard Schechner directed an "updated" version with The Performance Group in New York in 1979. He transformed the revolution into another fantasy staged in the brothel (as Bourseiller had done ten years earlier in Marseilles) and made Roger shoot Chantel when he realises that she still belongs to the brothel. 1980s July 1981, London . In the middle of the 1981 Brixton riot Internationalist Theatre staged a multi-racial performance of Genet's revolutionary play featuring the Sierra Leonean actress Ellen Thomas in the role of Irma.,"While the ruling classes, the icons and figureheads fiddle, society burns around them...a comment on power and political manoeuvre" ... thought provoking .." The cast included French actor Yves Aubert as the General and Angelique Rockas as Carmen . The Finnish Broadcasting Company's (YLE) television theatre produced a television adaptation of the Balcony in 1982, directed by Arto af Hällström and Janne Kuusi.The Balcony was the first play by Genet that the Comédie-Française staged, although he neither attended rehearsals nor saw it performed there; the production opened on 14 December 1985, under the direction of Georges Lavaudant. JoAnne Akalaitis directed the play in a translation by Jean-Claude van Itallie at the American Repertory Theater (on their Loeb Stage) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened on 15 January 1986, with choreography by Johanna Boyce, sets by George Tsypin, costume design by Kristi Zea and music by Rubén Blades. Akalaitis set the play in a Central American republic and added a "Marcos"-figure (played by Tim McDonough) as the leader of the revolutionaries. Joan MacIntosh played Irma, Diane D'Aquila played Carmen, Harry S. Murphy played the Chief of Police, and Jeremy Geidt played the Envoy. 1990s Geoffrey Sherman directed a production at the Hudson Guild Theater in New York in 1990. Angela