Stockard Channing to Star in London 'Awake and Sing!'

Stage and screen star Stockard Channing will return to London stages in the Almeida Theatre Company's revival of the Clifford Odets classic Awake and Sing! this fall. Michael Attenborough, artistic director of the Almeida, will direct.

Awake and Sing! was presented on Broadway last year; Bartlett Sher's production, starring Zoe Wanamaker, Mark Ruffalo and Lauren Ambrose, won the 2006 Tony for Best Revival of a Play.  Set during the Great Depression, the play concerns a Bronx family's battles against poverty and failure.

Channing previously appeared on the London stage in Six Degrees of Separation, in which she also performed on Broadway and on film.  She is a Tony Award-winner for Joe Egg, and has also earned Tony nominations for her work in The Lion in Winter, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, Six Degrees of Separation and The House of Blue Leaves.  Best known to TV audiences for her work as Abigail Bartlett in "The West Wing," she has been seen on film in, among others, Le Divorce, Anything Else, Where the Heart Is, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar, Heartburn and Grease, in which she played Betty Rizzo.

Visit www.almeida.co.uk for more information on the Almeida Theatre.

Photo of Stockard Channing by Linda Lenzi