Off-B'way Update: Iguana Revival with Eclectic Cast

La Femme Theater Productions will present an Off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana, directed by Emily Mann (Having Our Say, Execution of Justice). Previews begin Dec. 6 with a Dec. 17 opening for a limited run through Feb. 25, 2024 at the Irene Diamond Stage of the Pershing Square Signature Theater Center (this is not a Signature Theater Company production). The eclectic cast will be led by Emmy nominee Timothy Daly (Wings), Tony nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent, Anna in the Tropics), Drama Desk nominee and SAG winner Lea DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black, POTUS, On the Town), Drama Desk winner and Tony nominee Austin Pendleton (The Minutes, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Little Foxes), and Jean Lichty (La Femme's productions of Williams' A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur and Horton Foote's The Traveling Lady). Mann also directed Rubin-Vega in the 2012 Broadway revival of Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.

Daphne Rubin-Vega and 
Tim Daly will star in
The Night of the Iguana.

“The Night of the Iguana poses critical questions of faith and identity that are particularly relevant today as we navigate a paradoxically divided yet open world,” Lichty, executive director of La Femme, said in a statement. “Tennessee offers an answer by writing an epic that he described as ‘a play about love in its purest terms.'”

Iguana opened on Broadway in 1961 with Bette Davis, Margaret Leighton (Tony Award for Best Actress), and Patrick O'Neal, and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. The drama focuses on a defrocked priest at the end of his spiritual rope who has crash-landed at a rundown tourist spot in Acapulco, Mexico. There he encounters the lusty, widowed hotel owner, a traveling artist and her 92-year-old grandfather. John Huston's film version was released in 1964 with Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon, and Grayson Hall (Oscar nomination).

Ava Gardner and Richard Burton in
the film version of
The Night of the Iguana (1964).

Subsequent Broadway revivals have starred Richard Chamberlain, Dorothy McGuire, and Sylvia Miles (1976, Circle in the Square); Jane Alexander, Nicholas Surovy, and Maria Tucci (1988, Circle in the Square); and Cherry Jones, Marsha Mason, and William Peterson (1996, Roundabout Theater Company at the Criterion Center). A 2019 London revival starred Clive Owen, Lia Williams, and Anna Gunn. A major regional production at the Hartford Stage in 2017 was headlined by Amanda Plummer, Bill Heck, Dana Delaney, Elizabeth Ashley, and James Earl Jones.

La Femme Theater Productions previously presented Iguana as a digital fund-raiser in 2020, directed by Mann and starring Dylan McDermott, Phylicia Rashad, and Roberta Maxwell.

2023-24 Broadway and Off-Broadway Calendar

Sept. 20--Dig (Primary Stages/59E59)
Sept. 27--Purlie Victorious (Music Box)
Sept. 28--Melissa Etheridge: My Window (Circle in the Square)
Oct. 3--Jaja's African Hair Braiding (MTC/Friedman)
Oct. 4--The Refuge Plays (Roundabout/NYTW/Laura Pels)
Oct. 4--DruidO'Casey (Public/NYU Skirball Center)
Oct. 6--Stereophonic (begins previews; opening TBA) (Playwrights Horizons)
Oct. 10--Merrily We Roll Along (Hudson)
Oct. 12--Gutenberg! The Musical (James Earl Jones)
Oct. 22--Here We Are (The Shed Griffin Theater)
Oct. 29--Translations (Irish Repertory Theater)
Oct. 30--I Can Get It for You Wholesale (CSC)
Nov. 1--Poor Yella Rednecks (MTC/City Center Stage I)
Nov. 2--I Need That (Roundabout/AA)
Nov. 2--Sabbath's Theater (New Group/Signature Theater)
Nov. 4--Waiting for Godot (begins previews; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Center)
Nov. 12--Scene Partners (Vineyard Theater)
Nov. 13--Harmony (Barrymore)
Nov. 13--Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Lortel)
Nov. 16--Monty Python's Spamalot (St. James)
Nov. 19--Hell's Kitchen (Public)
Nov. 20--The Gardens of Anuncia (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
Nov. 24--Lone Star (Ruth Stage/Theater Row)
Nov. 30--Spain (Second Stage/Terry Kiser)
Nov.--Sad Boys in Harpy Land; Amusements; School Pictures (solo shows performed in repertory at Playwrights Horizons)

Winter 2023-24

Dec. 5--Manhatta (Public)

Dec. 10--How To Dance in Ohio (Belasco)

Dec. 12--Buena Vista Social Club (Atlantic Theater Company/Linda Gross)

Dec. 17--The Night of the Iguana (La Femme Theater Prods./Signature Center)

Dec. 18--Appropriate (Second Stage/Hayes)

Jan. 9--Prayer for the French Republic (MTC/Friedman)

Jan. 17--Public Obscenities (previews begin; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Center)

Jan. 21--Aristocrats (IRT)

Jan. 28--Days of Wine and Roses (Studio 54)

Feb. 8--Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy (Vineyard Theater)

Feb. 21--Teeth (previews begin; opening TBA) (Playwrights Horizons)

Feb. 26--Pericles (previews begin; opening TBA) (CSC)

Feb.--Doubt: A Parable (Roundabout/AA)

Feb.--The Ally (Public)

TBA--Brooklyn Laundry (MTC/City Center Stage I)

TBA--An Enemy of the People

TBA--I Love You So Much I Could Die (NYTW)

TBA--The Seven Year Disappear (The New Group/Signature Center)

Spring 2024

March 14--The Notebook (Schoenfeld)

March 19--Fish (previews begin; opening TBA) (Keen Co./Theater Five) 

March 21--Water for Elephants (Imperial)

March 24--Philadelphia, Here I Come (IRT)

March--Sally and Tom (Public)

April 2--Mary Jane (previews begin; opening TBA) (MTC/Friedman) 

April 5--Macbeth (an undoing) (previews begin; opening TBA) (TFANA/Polonsky Center)

April 11--The Outsiders (Jacobs)

April 12--Staff Meal (previews begin; opening TBA) (Playwrights Horizons)

April 24--Uncle Vanya (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)

April 25--Mother Play (Second Stage/Hayes)

April--Jordans (Public)

May 2--Wine in the Wilderness (previews begin; opening TBA) (CSC)

June--Cats (Perelman Performing Arts Center)

TBA--All of Me (The New Group/Signature Center)

TBA--Cabaret (August Wilson)

TBA--Here There Are Blueberries (NYTW)

TBA--Home (Roundabout/AA)

TBA--Jonah (Roundabout/Laura Pels)

TBA--Lempicka

TBA--The Wiz

Fall 2024

King Lear (Kenneth Branagh Theater Company/The Shed)

2024-25

Smash

Spring 2025

Show Boat (Target Margin/NYU Skirball)

Future--Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death; Beaches the Musical; Black Orpheus; BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical; Come Fall in Love--The DDLJ Musical; Death Becomes Her; The Devil Wears Prada; Ella: An American Miracle; Everybody's Talking About Jamie; Frida, the Musical; Game of Thrones; The Great Gatsby; The Griswolds' Broadway Vacation; High Noon; Imitation of Life; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; The Karate Kid; La La Land; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; The Mousetrap; Nancy Drew and the Mystery at Spotlight Manor; Our Town; Pal Joey; The Nanny; The Normal Heart/The Destiny of Me; The Secret Garden; Sing Street; Soul Train; What a Wonderful World; The Who's Tommy; Working Girl.

2023-24 Broadway Season Breakdown:
New Plays:
The Cottage
Grey House
I Need That
Jaja's African Hair Braiding
Mother Play
Prayer for the French Republic
The Shark Is Broken

New Musicals:

Back to the Future

Days of Wine and Roses

Harmony

How to Dance in Ohio

Lempicka

The Notebook

Once Upon a One More Time

The Outsiders

Water for Elephants

Play Revivals:

Appropriate

Doubt: A Parable

An Enemy of the People

Home

Mary Jane

Purlie Victorious

Uncle Vanya

Musical Revivals:

Cabaret

Gutenberg! The Musical

Here Lies Love

Merrily We Roll Along

Monty Python's Spamalot

The Wiz

Solos/Specialties:

Alex Edelman: Just for Us

Melissa Etheridge: My Window