We’re going to be heading over to George and Martha’s next year.
Laurie Metcalf and Eddie Izzard will play the battling couple in a new revival of Edward Albee’s searing play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, producer Scott Rudin announced Saturday. The production, directed by Joe Mantello, will run a limited engagement beginning on March 2, 2020, with opening night slated for April 9.
The production will mark Metcalf’s fourth consecutive season appearing in major role in a Broadway play. She won back-to-back Tony Awards for her roles in 2017’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 and 2018’s revival of Albee’s Three Tall Women. She is currently appearing in Hillary and Clinton, which officially opens this week.
Izzard — who previously appeared on Broadway in the 2002 revival of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and again for David Mamet’s 2010 play Race — will be joined by Russell Tovey (A View From the Bridge) and Patsy Ferran (a 2019 Olivier winner for her role in London’s Summer and Smoke, making her Broadway debut) as George and Martha’s unlucky guests, Nick and Honey.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has a storied history on both stage and screen. First produced in 1962, the play centers around a middle-aged couple, who spend a long, boozy night sparring with one another and draw a younger couple into their bitter, toxic fray. That initial production won five Tony Awards, including Best Play and lead acting prizes for its two stars, Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill. Four years later, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred in Mike Nicols’ acclaimed film adaptation.
Albee himself directed a 1976 revival that starred Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara. More recently, a 2005 production starred Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Harbour, and Mireille Enos, while a 2012 version came to Broadway with Tracy Letts, Amy Morton, Carrie Coon, and Madison Dirks.
This latest incarnation of Virginia Woolf? will feature set design by Miriam Buether, lighting design by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, and costumes by Ann Roth.
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