Roundabout Announces Kate Burton in The Constant Wife

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) will present Kate Burton as "Constance Middleton" in the new Broadway production of W. Somerset Maugham social comedy The Constant Wife, directed by Mark Brokaw at the American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42nd Street). Previews begin on Friday, May 27th, 2005 and opens officially on Thursday, June 16th, 2005. This is a limited engagement through August 7th, 2005.

Additional casting will be announced shortly.

The Constant Wife is a social comedy of marital maneuvers in 1920s upper-class London. Constance Middleton discovers that her husband is having an affair with her best friend. Rather than humiliating herself and others, she denies the affair, defends the two, and sets about turning bad luck, unfaithful friends, local gossip and a broken heart to her own advantage.

The Broadway premiere of The Constant Wife began performances at Maxine Elliott's Theatre on November 29th, 1926. The last Broadway production on Broadway began performances at the Shubert Theatre on April 14th, 1975.

Twelve Angry Men is currently playing at the American Airlines Theatre through May 8th.

TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets will be available in April 2005 and available by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212) 719-1300, check online at www.roundabouttheatre.org for details.

Biographies:

Kate Burton (Constance Middleton) most recently received two Tony® nominations for Hedda Gabler and The Elephant Man. Appeared in Three Sisters directed by Michael Blakemore in the West End in 2003. Most recently she has been seen in Unfaithful and Stay with Ewan McGregor. Upcoming: "Empire Falls" on HBO, Shall Not Want with Maggie Gyllenhall, The Night Listner with Robin Williams, and will be recurring as Dr. Ellis Grey in "Gray's Anatomy" for ABC.

Mark Brokaw (Director). most recently directed the New York revivals of Reckless starring Mary-Louise Parker (Manhattan Theatre Club at the Biltmore) and Baltimore Waltz starring Kristen Johnston (Signature Theatre Company). New York premieres include Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home and How I Learned to Drive (Vineyard Theatre), Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero (Playwrights Horizons and its U.K. premiere at London's Donmar Warehouse and West End) and This Is Our Youth (New Group and Second Stage), Craig Lucas' The Dying Gaul and Stranger (Vineyard Theatre), Douglas Carter Beane's As Bees In Honey Drown and Music From a Sparkling Planet (Drama Dept.), Wendy Wasserstein's Old Money (Lincoln Center Theatre), Lisa Kron's 2.5 Minute Ride (New York Shakespeare Festival) and Lynda Barry's The Good Times Are Killing Me (Second Stage). Regional credits include the new musical Marty with John C. Reilly at the Huntington, A Little Night Music in the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center, as well as work at the Guthrie, Mark Taper Forum, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, La Jolla Playhouse and the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. He serves on the executive board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and is a member of Drama Dept.

WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM (Playwright) was born in 1874 in Paris. Both his parents died before he was eleven and he was brought up by his austere uncle, the vicar of a Kentish seaside town, an experience he drew from in Of Human Bondage. Educated at King's School Canterbury, he went on to Heidelberg University where his ambition to become a playwright was born. After qualifying as a doctor, he published his first novel Liza of Lambeth in 1897, which was an immediate success and enabled him to give up medicine. He wrote many plays before his first success, Lady Frederick in 1907. The following year, four of his plays were running simultaneously in the West End. Of Human Bondage appeared in 1915. During the first war he was recruited by British Intelligence and his experiences as an agent formed the basis for Ashenden. His 1918 marriage with Syrie Wellcome produced a daughter and the 1920's were his most successful decade in the theatre: plays included The Sacred Flame, Our Betters' and The Circle. In 1933 he gave up the theatre but went on to write many novels including The Razor's Edge, Cakes and Ale and Theatre, recently filmed as "Being Julia" (2004) which secured Annette Bening an Oscar nomination. He died in 1965 at the age of 92 in the South of France where he had lived since shortly after his divorce in 1927.

Roundabout Theatre Company is one of the country's leading not-for-profit theatres. The company contributes invaluably to New York's cultural life by staging the highest quality revivals of classic plays and musicals as well as new plays by established writers. Roundabout consistently partners great artists with great works to bring a fresh and exciting interpretation that makes each production relevant and important to today's audiences.

The 2004-05 season marks an extraordinary time in Roundabout's history. The theatre has finally secured three permanent theatres each of which is designed specifically to enhance the needs of the Roundabout's mission. The off Broadway home, the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre's Laura Pels Theatre with its simple sophisticated design is perfectly suited to showcasing new plays while the grandeur of its Broadway home, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics. Roundabout's Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. Together these three distinctive venues serve to enhance the work on each of its stages.

Roundabout Theatre Company productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; New York State Council on the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. The Westin Hotel is the official hotel of the Roundabout Theatre Company.

www.roundabouttheatre.org