Photo Flash: Jane Fonda and Stephen Hawking Meet At 33 Variations

The legendary film and stage actress will reprise the role she created for the 2009 Broadway run of "33 Variations" and for which she received a Tony Award nomination.

The play, which was nominated for a total of five Tony Awards, will be part of the Mark Taper Forum's 2011 season, and will be offered as a bonus option to Ahmanson Theatre season ticket holders.

Jane Fonda will head a cast of eight in the play created by Kaufman, who received Tony Award nominations for "33 Variations" (Best Play 2009) and for "I Am My Own Wife" (Best Director 2004), and most recently directed the acclaimed "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," at the Mark Taper Forum and earlier at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

In "33 Variations," the audience is transported back and forth from present-day New York to 19th century Austria, when a musicologist (Fonda) is determined to solve the musical mystery of why Beethoven spent his last years feverishly writing 33 variations of what appeared to be a mediocre waltz created by his publisher.

Photo by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging