B'way Update: Montauk at MTC; Tony, DD, NYDCC News

Laura Linney

Tony nominee and Emmy winner Laura Linney (The Little Foxes, The Big C) will return to Broadway in the world premiere of Montauk by Tony nominee and Olivier winner David Hare (Plenty, Skylight, The Vertical Hour), presented by Manhattan Theater Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in spring 2027. Linney will be joining MTC in the new position of Artist-in-Residence, working on developing projects for upcoming seasons at MTC, as well as participating in MTC’s educational and community outreach programs. Tony winner Daniel Sullivan will direct, having worked with Linney at MTC before on Summer, 1976 and The Little Foxes.

Montauk is a visceral portrait of two artists with violently different approaches to art and life. Jared Speight is a stubborn titan of Long Island abstraction when star writer Roxy Margaux first becomes infatuated with his bravado. But over a decade of romantic and career entanglements, their different reasons for making art become painfully clear. The play was originally announced as a production by Scott Rudin with Laurie Metcalf to star.

“Laura Linney is one of the most versatile actors of our time,” said Artistic Director Nicki Hunter. “Her artistry, intelligence, and generosity make her the ideal partner for this brand-new initiative for MTC. We are thrilled to welcome her in this expanded capacity, cementing a commitment to working together in the future, and to collaborate on David Hare’s Montauk, directed by Daniel Sullivan. We’re proud to be giving this play its world premiere on Broadway.”
 
“I could not be more proud to be Manhattan Theatre Club’s first Artist-in-Residence,” Linney commented. “MTC has been my theatrical home for decades, and I feel very honored indeed to kick off this new position. Thank you, Nicki and Lynne!”

B'way Update: Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne, Ella Fitzgerald Musical

Laura Linney in 
My Name Is Lucy Barton.
Credit: Manuel Harlan

Five-time Tony nominee and four-time Emmy winner Laura Linney (The Big C, John Adams, Frasier, Wild Iris) will return to Broadway in the premiere of Summer, 1976, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner David Auburn (Proof). Previews begin April 4, 2023 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater as part of Manhattan Theater Club's season. Tony winner Daniel Sullivan direct. In addition to Proof, Sullivan directed Auburn's The Columnist. Linney last appeared on Broadway at the Friedman in the one-woman play My Name is Lucy Barton. She also starred at the Friedman in The Little Foxes and Sight Unseen. Summer, 1976 was originally announced for MTC's Stage II Off-Broadway space at City Center for a fall opening. 

2019-20 Broadway Season Forecast

July is here and that means the 2018-19 Broadway season is officially done with and the next one is underway. Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, the revival of Terrence McNally's 1988 two-hander, was the first official production of the season, opening in May. The summer is pretty slow this year with only two Broadway openings confirmed--Moulin Rouge, the stage version of Baz Luhrmann's gaudy and superficial 2001 film musical and Sea Wall/A Life, a transfer of a pair of solo pieces starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge which played the Public Theater earlier this year. Tea at Five, the one-woman play starring Faye Dunaway as Katharine Hepburn, was supposed to open sometime during the summer, as was an all-female staging of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. But neither ever secured a theater and their future is uncertain. Tea at Five is now playing Boston's Huntington Theater through July 14.

Here's a rundown of announced Broadway openings for 2019-20:

Charlie Cox, Zawe Ashton, and Tom Hiddleston in Betrayal.
Credit: Marc Brenner

Betrayal: Harold Pinter's reverse-chronicle triangle drama returns to Broadway for its third revival with Tom Hiddleston, Zawe Ashton and Charlie Cox making their Broadway debuts after a smashing success in London's West End. (Original: 1980 with Raul Julia, Blythe Danner, and Roy Scheider, Reprised in 2001 with Liev Schreiber, Juliette Binoche and John Slattery, and in 2013 with Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Rafe Spall). (Jacobs/Sept. 15)

Derren Brown: Secret--The magician and mentalist brings his Drama Desk winning show to Broadway after a run at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2017.

The Height of the Storm--Manhattan Theater Club opens its Broadway season with this drama by French playwright Florian Zeller starring Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce repeating their London performances as a couple who, not unlike the protagonists of Zeller's plays The Father and The Mother, face uncertainty and despair after decades of marriage.

2016-17 Broadway Season Update

Andy Karl in Groundhog Day,
now in London and coming to Broadway, but when?
Credit: Manuel Harlan/Old Vic Theater

We are in the valley between seasons. It's the trough of summer and nothing will open on Broadway until well after Labor Day. The only hot-weather openings have been revivals of Motown (which has already closed) and Cats. The upcoming 2016-17 roster has a few highlights,  but very few new plays. Right now there are only five new plays announced--two are American and both have appeared Off-Broadway previously (Oslo and Significant Other), the other three are British or Australian (The Encounter, The Present, Heisenberg which played MTC Off-Broadway last year). The most exciting nonmusical productions are revivals with an all-star Front Page and Cherry Orchard, Jake Gyllenhaal in Burn This at the newly renovated Hudson Theatre (Broadway's 41st theater), Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternating lead roles in The Little Foxes, and Julie Taymor's take on M. Butterfly.