Ambrose, Gazzara, Hadary, Wanamaker and More to Awake and Sing! on Broadway

By: Dec. 22, 2005
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An array of stars will appear in the upcoming Lincoln Center revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! Lauren Ambrose, Ben Gazzara, Jonathan Hadary and Zoe Wanamaker are among those who will star in the drama, which will open on April 17th, 2006, after beginning previews on March 23rd.

While its hit production of the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza continues uptown at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center Theater will present the show at the Belasco Theatre (111 West 44th Street), the very theatre where the play had its world premiere in 1935. The production will celebrate Odets' Centenary.

Ned Eisenberg (The Green Bird), Peter Kybart (Judgment at Nuremberg, The Diary of Anne Frank), Pablo Schreiber (Mr. Marmalade) and Richard Topol (Julius Caesar, The School for Scandal) will join Ambrose, Gazzare, Hadary, Schreiber and Wanamaker in the play. Awake and Sing! will reunite The Light in the Piazza director Barlett Sher with that musical's Tony Award winning design team -- set designer Michael Yeargan, costume designer Catherine Zuber and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind.

"Awake and Sing!  is the story of a Jewish family in the Bronx who have fallen on hard times during the Depression. Widely considered Odets' masterpiece, the drama premiered on Broadway in 1935 and, a resounding hit, was the legendary Group Theatre's first Broadway production," according to press notes. The Flowering Peach was the last Odets show to be revived on Broadway; it was produced in 1994. A 1984 revival of Awake and Sing! starred Nancy Marchand, Harry Hamlin, Frances McDormand and Dick Latessa. Others were mounted in 1938 and 1939.

Known for plays that fought social injustice, Odets also wrote Waiting for Lefty, Golden Boy, Clash By Night, The Big Knife and The Country Girl, among others. Sweet Smell of Success was his most famous screenplay.

Ambrose, who is best known for her role as Claire on "Six Feet Under" and for films such as Psycho Beach Party, will make her New York stage debut in the play. Gazzara received Tony Award nominations for his performances in the 1976 revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hughie/Duet and A Hatful of Rain; other credits include the original production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Strange Interlude. Hadary, whose Broadway credits include Gemini, Torch Song Trilogy, Guys and Dolls and All Shook Up, received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the 1989 revival of Gypsy. Wanamaker received both Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for all three of her Broadway appearances--Electra, Loot and Piaf. She won an Olivier Award for her work in Once in a Lifetime.

For more information, visit www.lincolncenter.org.





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