Acclaimed actress Jessica Chastain, winner of 2011 New York, Los Angeles and Chicago Film Critics and National Board of Review Awards and recently nominated for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards, will make her Broadway debut starring in the Tony Award-winning play The Heiress.
Written by Ruth Goetz & Augustus Goetz, The Heiress will be directed by Tony Award nominated playwright and director Moises Kaufman and will open in the Fall of 2012 at a theatre to be announced.
The Heiress will be produced by Paula Wagner, Roy Furman and Stephanie P. McClelland. This production marks 17 years since the celebrated play was last seen on Broadway. The Heiress is based on the classic Henry James novel Washington Square and became an Academy Award-winning film. The dramatic and suspenseful play features one of the great female roles written for the stage.
The original production of The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel Washington Square, premiered on Broadway in 1947 at the Biltmore Theatre. The 1949 Academy Award winning movie version was adapted from the play by the Goetzes, and was directed by William Wyler, starring Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson.
Maybe, if someone never saw the revelatory Cherry Jones in the 1995 revival of 'The Heiress,' well, maybe the one now starring Jessica Chastain would make the 1947 drama by Ruth and Augustus Goetz feel like a genuine demi-classic discovery.
Its latest revival, which opened Thursday night at the Walter Kerr Theatre, is a showcase, of sorts, for two popular and very capable young actors, Hollywood's Jessica Chastain ('The Help,' 'Tree of Life') and TV's Dan Stevens ('Downton Abbey'), each making a Broadway debut. Both give committed and persuasive, if not transcendent, performances. They're supported, and occasionally overshadowed, by two canny veteran stage performers, David Strathairn and Judith Ivey.
| 1947 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1950 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1976 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 1995 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| 2012 | Broadway |
Broadway |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Judith Ivey |
| 2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play | Judith Ivey |
| 2013 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Play | Albert Wolsky |
| 2013 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play | Judith Ivey |
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