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.
If you can overlook the absurdity of casting the ravishing Jessica Chastain as the plain and clumsy heroine of 'The Heiress,' Ruth and Augustus Goetz's 1947 stage adaptation of 'Washington Square,' then Moises Kaufman's masterfully helmed production is everything you want from a Class A revival. As is proper for a costume drama, the costumes are mouthwatering. The set is just as scrumptious, and the cast seems entirely comfortable speaking the language and thinking the thoughts of people from a bygone era -- David Strathairn so much so, you'd swear he goes up the staircase to bed each night after the show.
Director Moisés Kaufman's crisp, first-rate production finds an admirable complexity in Ruth and Augustus Goetz' 1947 drama, based on the Henry James novel Washington Square. In her Broadway debut, Chastain conveys social discomfort and awkwardness without veering into caricature. In the second act, as her mouse of a character gradually learns to roar, the uniquely American arc of this tragedy comes into sharper focus.
1947 | Broadway |
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1950 | Broadway |
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1976 | Broadway |
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1995 | Broadway |
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2012 | Broadway |
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Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
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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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