Bill Pullman, Ed Harris Lead THE JACKSONIAN at the Geffen; Opens February 2012

Ed Harris, Bill Pullman, Amy Madigan and Glenne Headly are checking into The Jacksonian, Pulitzer Prize winner Beth Henley's eerie world-premiere set in a seedy motel in Jackson, Mississippi circa 1964. Ed Harris, a four-time Oscar nominee and Broadway vet who recently appeared at the Geffen Playhouse in Wrecks, is Bill Perch, a dentist with ambiguous morality who goes to The Jacksonian to bury his secrets. Estranged from his wife, played by Amy Madigan (Broadway's Streetcar Named Desire and Oscar nominee for Twice in a Life Time), Perch makes his new home in the motel's unsettling world where the subversive becomes commonplace and the passage of time becomes hauntingly unpredictable. As the Perch's lives become intertwined with the inhabitants of the motel - proprietor Fred Weber played by Bill Pullman (most recently seen on Broadway in Oleanna and on-screen in HBO's Too Big to Fail) and bar tender Glenne Headly (most recognizable for her big-screen role in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and recently seen at the Geffen Playhouse in Love, Loss, and What I Wore) - the audience is taken on a surreal trip that is rife with disturbingly dark humor. Helmed by Tony Award winner and Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls, The Jacksonian opens in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse on February 8, 2012.

"I am humbled and awestruck to be working with the artists who are involved in this premiere production," said playwright Beth Henley. "It is an honor and a joy - a sublime situation. I plan to relish every moment."

The Geffen Playhouse production marks the world-premiere of this play; however, Harris, Headly, Madigan and Pullman were all involved with Henley in early readings of the project. There is one remaining actor to be announced for the role of Rosy Perch, Susan & Bill Perch's daughter.

Tickets for The Jacksonian are currently available through subscription only. Seven-play subscription packages begin at $290 and can be purchased online at www.geffenplayhouse.com or the subscription hotline at 310-208-2028.

Biographies

ED HARRIS (Bill Perch)
Ed Harris previously appeared at the Geffen Playhouse in 2009 as Edward Carr in Neil LaBute's Wrecks (LADCC Award for Best Solo Performance), a role he originated at the Everyman Palace Theatre in Ireland as well as reprised for the New York run in 2006. Harris' theater credits include: Taking Sides, Fool for Love (Obie Award -Outstanding Actor), Precious Sons (Drama Desk Award - Outstanding Actor), Prairie Avenue (LADCC Award),Scar, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Grapes of Wrath, Sweet Bird of Youth, and Simpatico (Lucille Lortel Award - Best Actor). On screen, Harris, who will next be seen in the feature thriller, Man on a Ledge and in HBO's Game Change, has appeared in over fifty films and been nominated for four Academy Awards. He has been honored with a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, and a National Society of Film Critics Award for his work in films. He has directed two films in which he also starred: Pollock and Appaloosa, which he co-wrote, directed and produced.

GLENNE HEADLY (Eva White)
Theater: Balm in Gilead ( N.Y., Chicago ), Aunt Dan & Lemon, (London's Almeida Theatre); Detachments (Los Angeles), My Brilliant Divorce, (Galway, Ireland ); Arms and the Man, (Broadway ); former longtime member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company (four Jefferson Awards); Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Geffen Playhouse). Television: On Golden Pond ( live telecast ); Bastard Out of Carolina; Lonesome Dove (both Emmy nominated for best supporting actress film/mini-series); Pronto. Film: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Dick Tracy; Mr. Holland's Opus; Mortal Thoughts, Nadine; What's the Worst that Could Happen; Sgt. Bilko: Making Mr. Right; Breakfast of Champions; The Amateurs; 2 Days in the Valley; The Jonses.

AMY MADIGAN (Susan Perch)
Theater credits: Streetcar Named Desire (Broadway), A Lie of the Mind (Mark Taper Forum,) Steven Wants to Play the Blues (LATC), The Lucky Spot (MTC), Prairie Avenue( Los Angeles), In the Boom Boom Room (Los Angeles). Film credits include: Twice in a Lifetime(Academy Award Nomination), Gone Baby Gone, Once Fallen, Winter Passing, Female Perversions, Uncle Buck, Field of Dreams, Alamo Bay, Streets of Fire, Places in the Heart, Love Child and others. Most recent television includes: Memphis Beat and Fringe, other credits include Grey's Anatomy and Criminal Minds. Received a Golden Globe Award and Emmy nomination for Roe Vs. Wade, Cable Ace Award for Best Actress for And Then There Was One and The Laundromat. Other credits include HBO Carnivale, The Laramie Project, A Bright Shining Lie and Shot in the Heart. Madigan has done many other TV films. Upcoming films include: Dustin Lance Black's What's Wrong With Virginia and Jenny Deller's Future Weather.

BILL PULLMAN (Fred Weber)
Bill Pullman started acting professionally in New York theater in 1983, and shortly after began his film career. His movie work includes blockbuster comedies (Ruthless People, Spaceballs), dramas (The Accidental Tourist, Igby Goes Down), romantic comedies (Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping), action (Independence Day), thrillers (Malice), westerns (The Virginian, Wyatt Earp), film noir (The Last Seduction, The Zero Effect), and horror (The Grudge). His theater work includes the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Oleanna, the Broadway world premiere of Edward Albee's The Goat (Drama Desk nomination), as well as Albee's Peter & Jerry (Drama Desk nomination). Bill directed for the anthology TV series Night Visions, and directed and produced the TNT movie The Virginian. He recently starred in HBO's Too Big To Fail and just wrapped production on the BBC and Starz series Torchwood. Bill received a BA from the State University College at Oneonta, and an MFA in Theater Directing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He taught in the Theater Department at Montana State University in Bozeman for two years before heading to New York.

ROBERT FALLS (Director)
Robert Falls has been the artistic director of Goodman Theatre since 1986. Recent credits for the Goodman include his critically acclaimed adaptation of The Seagull and the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman's A True History of the Johnstown Flood (one of Time magazine's "10 best" of the season). Mr. Falls' Broadway productions of Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey into Night received multiple Tony Awards, and his Shakespeare Theatre production of King Lear garnered Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Direction and Production. Other recent credits include the Broadway revival of Desire Under the Elms, the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Talk Radio, the American premiere of Shining City, Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida for Walt Disney Theatricals, and the world premieres of Arthur Miller's Finishing the Picture and Richard Nelson's Frank's Home. Current directing projects include Three Hotels for the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Midwest premiere of John Logan's Tony Award-winning Red for the Goodman.

BETH HENLEY (Playwright)
Beth Henley was born in Jackson, Mississippi. Her plays have been produced internationally and translated into over ten languages. Crimes of the Heart and The Wake of Jamey Foster were performed on Broadway. Off-Broadway productions include: The Miss Firecracker Contest, Am I Blue, The Lucky Spot, The Debutante Ball, , Abundance, Impossible Marriage, and Family Week. Her play Ridiculous Fraud was produced at McCarter Theatre as well as South Coast Repertory Theatre. Beth Henley was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play for Crimes of the Heart. Other awards include: American Theatre Wing 1998 Award for Distinguished Achievement in Playwrighting; Susan Smith Blackburn Finalist for Crimes of the Heart and Ridiculous Fraud; Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award 2000; New York Stage and Film Honoree, 2007; ATHE Career Achievement Award, 2010. Ms. Henley has the honor of serving as Theatre Arts Presidential Professor at LMU, Los Angeles.

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos