RIALTO CHATTER: Brendan Fraser, Denis O'Hare & Jennifer Coolidge to Star in ELLING?

Michael Riedel reports in today's New York Post that Brendan Fraser, who's film career includes The Mummy, G.I. Joe, Encino Man, Journey to the Center of the Earth and other films is now headed to Broadway, to star in the Simon Bent play - Elling. 

The play, which is said to be headed this fall to the Barrymore Theatre on Broadway will also star Denis O'Hare and Jennifer Coolidge and will be directed by Dough Hughes and produced by Howard Panter. 

Fraser will make his Broadway debut in the show but isn't a complete stranger to the stage. He starred as 'Brick' in the West End production of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 2001, directed by Anthony Page.

The charming yet unsentimental comedy, Elling, adapted by Britain's Simon Bent from the Norwegian novel and cult film, is about people living on society's fringe attempting to come to terms with the real world.

From institutional care, confused souls Elling and Kjell are discharged into a state-subsidised flat in Oslo and given the opportunity to prove that they can lead independent lives. On their hilarious search for what it is to be ‘normal', this oddball twosome make some unexpected discoveries about love, sex, food, poetry, and the power of friendship.

Simon Bent's adaptation of Elling is based on the cult hit film of a novel by one of Norway's most popular writers, Ingvar Ambjørnsen. Bent's adaptation was first performed at London's Bush Theatre in 2007 and later transferred to the West End. His other comedies include Wasted, Bad Company, Goldhawk Road and A Prayer for Owen Meany.

 

 

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