Knight, Collins and Schreck Complete Cast of Long Wharf's THE OLD MASTERS

Academy Award nominee Shirley Knight, Rufus Collins and Heidi Schreck complete the cast of The Old Masters, directed by Michael Rudman.
The show will take place Jan. 19-Feb. 13, 2011 on the Mainstage.

Long Wharf Theatre's production of The Old Masters precedes an anticipated Broadway run produced by John Martello and Elliot Martin. Sam Waterston and Brian Murray have already been announced.

Shirley Knight won a Tony Award for her performance in Kennedy's Children. She was also nominated for two Academy Awards for Sweet Bird of Youth (opposite Paul Newman) and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Schreck, a playwright as well as an actress, recently had her newest play There Are No More Big Secrets debut at the Rattlesnake Theatre in New York. She also won an OBIE Award for her work in Drum of the Waves of Horikawa. Collins is a Broadway veteran, having appeared in The Royal Family, To Be or Not To Be, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and An Ideal Husband.

Rudman has led five different English theatres: the Traverse, Hampstead Theatre, the Lyttleton at the National Theatre, the Chichester Festival Theatre and the Crucible in Sheffield. He has directed many plays at the National Theatre and in the West End. While he was artistic director of Hampstead the theatre won the Evening Standard award for outstanding achievement. In America he has directed three plays on Broadway, one of which, The Changing Room, originated at Long Wharf Theatre. His production of Death of a Salesman at the Broadhurst Theatre won the Tony Award for Best Revival. In 1976 he directed Sam Waterston as Hamlet in the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and at the Vivien Beaumont Theatre in Lincoln Center. In 1993 he directed Measure for Measure at the Delacorte.
The play, written in 2004 and previously performed in London's West End, takes place under the menacing shadow of Mussolini in 1937. Two aging lions joust over the value of art and money. Just outside Florence, famous art historIan Bernard Berenson (played by Waterston) and notorious art dealer Joseph Duveen (portrayed by Murray) edge toward an explosive final encounter as their turbulent relationship erupts on stage.

Long Wharf Theatre has a long history of performing Gray's works, including the award-winning production of Quartermaine's Terms, producedduring the 1982-83 season, then transferring to Playhouse 91 in 1983. The show won an OBIE Award that year for ensemble performance. In addition, Long Wharf Theatre produced the much acclaimed The Common Pursuit.

ABOUT THE THEATRE

Long Wharf Theatre (Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director and Ray Cullom, Managing Director), entering its 46th season, is recognized as a leader in American theatre, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres. More than 30 Long Wharf productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or Off-Broadway, some of which include The Glass Menagerie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit by Margaret Edson, The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer and The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn. The theatre is an incubator of new works, including last season's Have You Seen Us? by Athol Fugard. Long Wharf Theatre has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle and the Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

www.LongWharf.org

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