Michael Stuhlbarg Will Return to Broadway in Peter Morgan's PATRIOTS

Award-winning theatre, film, and television actor Michael Stuhlbarg will return to Broadway for the first time in almost 20 years to star in Patriots, the Almeida Theatre production of the timely new play by Peter Morgan, creator of “The Crown.” 

Patriots is about billionaire Boris Berezovsky, the kingmaker behind Vladimir Putin’s chilling rise to power. Original London cast member Will Keen will recreate his Olivier Award-winning performance as Vladimir Putin.

Directed by Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold, Patriots will open April 22, 2024 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Previews will begin April 1, 2024. Tickets for the strictly limited 12-week engagement are on sale today.

Patriots, which won the 2023 Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play, comes to Broadway following a record-breaking run at London’s Almeida Theatre where it was the fastest-selling new play in the theatre’s history, and a sold out 12-week run in the West End at the Noël Coward Theatre, where it recouped its investment.

Check out photos of the West End production here and read our review here!

In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new Russia belongs to its oligarchs – and no one is more powerful than billionaire Boris Berezovsky (Stuhlbarg). “If the politicians cannot save Russia,” he insists, “then we businessmen must.” When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to the little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin (Keen). But soon Putin’s ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky’s reign, setting off a riveting, near-Shakespearean confrontation between the two powerful, fatally flawed men.

Patriots will also feature original London cast member Luke Thallon (Evening Standard Award nominee for the Almeida’s Albion) as Russian oligarch and politician Roman Abramovich. Additional casting will be announced in coming weeks.

“For 20 years, Peter Morgan has pioneered a new mode of storytelling to illuminate our world. No other writer wrings so much human drama out of historical events, but Patriotsis his most urgent and essential play to date – an incisive deep-dive into 30 years of Russia’s past in search of its horrifying and harrowing present, something that should concern us all,” commented Sonia Friedman. “Its London premiere at the Almeida and in the West End repeatedly seemed to reflect that day’s headlines and, with the world at a crossroads in 2024, it feels more immediate than ever. We are so fortunate that one of America’s greatest actors, Michael Stuhlbarg, will join us to play Boris Berezovsky, with Will Keen recreating his Olivier Award-winning role as Vladimir Putin, and that Broadway audiences will get to experience Rupert Goold’s exhilarating production for themselves.”

Michael Stuhlbarg returns to Broadway for the first time since his Tony Award-nominated performance in The Pillowman in 2005. In 2009, he delivered a breakthrough performance in Joel and Ethan Coen’s film A Serious Man, which led to critically acclaimed performances in such films as Arrival, Seven Psychopaths, Lincoln, Blue Jasmine, Steve Jobs, Doctor Strange, Call Me By Your Name, The Post and The Shape of Water, among others. His television credits include “Boardwalk Empire” (two Screen Actors Guild Awards, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble), “Fargo,” “Your Honor,” “Dopesick” (Emmy Award nomination), “The Looming Tower” (Emmy Award nomination), and “The Staircase,” among others.

Will Keen won an Olivier Award for his performance as Vladimir Putin in Patriots. Other theatre credits include Ghosts and Tom and Viv at the Almeida; Quartermaine's Terms; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Elton John’s Glasses (West End); The Duchess of Malfi; The Coast of Utopia; Mary Stuart; Hove (National Theatre); The Tempest; Two Noble Kinsmen; Dido, Queen of Carthage; The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare’s Globe), among many others. Film credits include Operation Mincemeat, Frankenstein, and Love and Other Disasters. His TV credits include “Wolf Hall” and “The Crown.”

Peter Morgan is the creator of Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning “The Crown,” and returns to Broadway for the first time since The Audience in 2015. He has also been represented on Broadway with his Tony-nominated play, Frost/Nixon, later adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. Other major films include The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Damned United and Rush, among others.

Rupert Goold is the Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre. His previous work on Broadway includes Ink (Tony nomination), American Psycho, King Charles III (Tony nomination), ENRON, and Macbeth. His production of The Hunt will open at St. Ann’s Warehouse next month, and he will direct the upcoming musical Tammy Faye for Broadway next season. Goold has received Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard awards for Best Director twice and won the Peabody Award in 2011 for Macbeth.

The creative team for Patriots features three-time Tony Award nominated set designer Miriam Buether, co-costume designers Deborah Andrews and Miriam Buether,lighting designer Jack Knowles, Tony Award-winning sound designer and composer Adam Cork, movement director Polly Bennett and projection designer Ash J Woodward. Casting is by Jim Carnahan, CSA. US general management is by TT Partners.

Biographies

Michael Stuhlbarg (Boris Berezovsky) had long been a lauded actor in the New York theatre world, but it wasn’t until he played Larry Gopnik in the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, that he earned serious recognition from the film community including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture. His other films include Call Me By Your Name; The Shape of Water; Miss Sloane; Doctor Strange; Arrival; Jobs; Trumbo; Miles Ahead; Pawn Sacrifice; Lincoln; Blue Jasmine; Cut Bank; Hitchcock; Men in Black 3; Hugo; Body of Lies; The Grey Zone;  Cold Souls; and The Key to Reserva. Recent work includes Shirley, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Bones & All; and The Instigators. He played New York City mob boss Arnold Rothstein on HBO’s award-winning “Boardwalk Empire,” has recurred on Amazon’s “Transparent,” appeared in season three of FX’s “Fargo,” Hulu’s “The Looming Tower” (Emmy nomination), Netflix/Channel 4’s “Traitors,” Hulu’s “Dopesick”(Emmy nomination), HBO Max’s “The Staircase,” and Showtime’s “Your Honor.” In 2005, he was a Tony Award nominee and Drama Desk Award winner for Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. He was also honored with the New Dramatists Charles Bowden Actor Award and the Elliot Norton Boston Theatre Award, the latter for his performance in Long Day’s Journey into Night. Other Broadway credits: National Actors Theatre’s Saint Joan, Three Men on a Horse, Timon of Athens, The Government Inspector; Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides; Sam Mendes’ revival of Cabaret; and Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love. New York Shakespeare Festival: Twelfth Night, Richard II, Hamlet in Oskar Eustis’ production of Hamlet, Tim Blake Nelson’s Socrates. Other Off-Broadway credits: The Voysey Inheritance (Obie and Callaway Awards, Lucille Lortel Award nomination); Cymbeline; Old Wicked Songs; Measure For Pleasure (Lucille Lortel Award nomination) and The Grey Zone. BFA from The Juilliard School. He also studied at UCLA; at the Vilnius Conservatory in Lithuania’s Chekhov Studies unit; at the British-American Drama Academy at Baliol and Keble Colleges in Oxford; and, on a full scholarship, with Marcel Marceau.

  

Will Keen (Vladimir Putin). Broadway debut. Will Keen has just closed the West End transfer of Peter Morgan’s Patriots, directed by Rupert Goold for which he won the Olivier Award for Supporting Actor last year. He most recently wrapped “My Lady Jane” and the second series of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” both for Amazon, as well as indie feature Borderland opposite Felicity Jones and Mark Strong. He is currently on screens in “The Gold” (BBC1/Viacom), “Ridley Road” (BBC) and “The Pursuit of Love” (BBC) opposite Andrew Scott and Emily Beecham. His other TV credits include “His Dark Materials” seasons 1 and 2,  “The Crown” seasons one and two, “Genius,” “Picasso,” “Wolf Hall” and “The Musketeers.” Stage credits include Ghosts, Waste (Almeida), Quartermaine’s Terms (Wyndham's Theatre), The Arsonists (Royal Court) and Mary Stuart (National Theatre).

Luke Thallon (Roman Abramovich). Broadway debut. Training: Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Theatre credits include Leopoldstadt (Wyndham’s Theatre); the Pinter at the Pinter season (Harold Pinter Theatre); Camp Siegfried; Present Laughter (The Old Vic); After Life (National Theatre); Cock (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Inheritance (Young Vic); and Patriots, Albion, Nine Lessons & Carols (Almeida Theatre). Film includes The Favourite. Concert work includes readings of TS Eliot for Dead Poets Live at Wilton’s Music Hall and the Coronet Theatre. Awards include Clarence Derwent Award for Leopoldstadt and an Evening Standard Award nomination for Albion. He was listed by The Stage as one of the top 25 theatre makers of the future.

Peter Morgan (Playwright). Theatre includes: The Audience (West End/Broadway); Frost/Nixon (Donmar Warehouse/West End/Broadway). Film includes The Last King of Scotland; The Damned United; Rush. Television includes “The Crown”; “The Deal”; “The Special Relationship”; “Longford”; “The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies”. The award-winning and Tony-nominated play Frost/Nixon 

received critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic before being adapted into a film of the same name. The film garnered five Academy Award nominations, including Best Screenplay. Peter is the recipient of BAFTA, Emmy and Golden Globe awards and has received multiple Olivier, Tony, and Oscar nominations. In 2017, Morgan was awarded the BFI Fellowship, the institute’s highest honor and the RTS recognized “The Crown” with a special award in 2018 for its Contribution to British Television. The American Film Institute honored him with a tribute to his career at the AFI FEST 2019. Peter received a CBE in 2016 New Year’s Honors for services to drama.

Rupert Goold (Director). Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre, founding Artistic Director of Headlong (2005 to 2013), Associate Director at the RSC and Artistic Director of Northampton Theatres (2002 to 2005). For the Almeida: Cold War; Women, Beware the Devil; Tammy Faye (transferring to Broadway in 2024); Patriots (also West End); Spring Awakening (screened in cinemas UK wide); Albion; The Hunt; Shipwreck; Richard III; Medea; The Merchant of Venice; The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; American Psycho (also Broadway); Ink; King Charles III (also West End/Broadway). Theatre includes Dear England (National Theatre/ West End); The 47th (The Old Vic); The Effect;Earthquakes in London (Headlong/ National Theatre); Time and the Conways (National Theatre); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Kensington Gardens); The Merchant of Venice; Romeo and Juliet; Speaking Like Magpies (RSC); Enron (Headlong/ West End/ Broadway); Made in Dagenham; Oliver!; The Glass Menagerie; No Man’s Land (West End); King Lear (Headlong/ Liverpool Everyman/ Young Vic); Six Characters in Search of an Author (Headlong/ West End); Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre/ West End/ Broadway). Film includes Judy, True Story. Television includes “Macbeth”; “King Charles III”; “Richard II.” Opera includes Turandot (ENO); Le Comte Ory (Garsington Opera). Rupert’s production of The Hunt opens at St Ann’s Warehouse next month. Rupert has received Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard awards for Best Director twice and won a Peabody Award in 2011 for Macbeth. Rupert received a CBE in 2017 New Year’s Honours for services to drama.

Miriam Buether (Set Designer, Co-Costume Designer). Theatre and Dance as Designer includes: Spring Awakening; Hymn; Albion; Shipwreck; Machinal; Boy;  Game; When the Rain Stops Falling; Judgement Day (Almeida); The 47th (The Old Vic); King Lear; To Kill a Mockingbird; Three Tall Women; A Doll’s House, Part 2; The Children (Broadway); The Jungle (Young Vic/West End/St. Ann’s Warehouse); The Trial; Public Enemy; Wild Swans; The Government Inspector; In the Red and Brown Water; The Good Soul of Szechuan; Generations, Measure for Measure (Young Vic); Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.; Sucker Punch; Cock; In the Republic of Happiness; Get Santa! (Royal Court); The Children; Escaped Alone; Love and Information (Royal Court/Minetta Lane Theatre); Wild, Sunny Afternoon; Bend it Like Beckham (West End); Chariots of Fire (Hampstead Theatre/ West End); The Father (Theatre Royal Bath); The Effect; Earthquakes in London (National Theatre). Opera as Designer includes: La fanciulla del West (ENO/Santa Fe Opera); Turandot; Wozzeck (ENO);  Suor Angelica, Il Trittico – Suor Angelica (Royal Opera House, as Set Designer); Anna Nicole (Royal Opera House/ BAM); Boris Godunov (Berlin Opera). Miriam won The Linbury Prize for Stage Design in 1999 and received the Evening Standard Best Design Award in 2010 for Earthquakes in London and Sucker Punch, and in 2018 for The Jungle.

Deborah Andrews (Co-Costume Designer) studied Fashion Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and then worked in fashion before being lured into the theatre. She has worked as a Costume Designer, Associate Designer and Supervisor in both Opera and Theatre. Theatre includes Spring Awakening; Filomena; Medea; Ink; The Twilight Zone (Almeida); To Kill a Mockingbird; Prima Facie; Company; The Birthday Party; As You Desire Me (West End); Angels in America; Oslo; Peter Gynt; The Welkin; Afterlife (National Theatre); Good People; Wonderland; Hapgood; (Hampstead Theatre); Sunny Afternoon (Hampstead Theatre/West End/tour); King Lear; The Winslow Boy (Chichester Festival Theatre); Shakespeare Trilogy; Closer; Philadelphia, Here I Come! (Donmar Warehouse). Opera includes Otello (Grange Park Opera); Maria Luisa; Vanessa; The Rape of Lucretia; La bohème; St Matthew Passion (Glyndebourne); Agrippina; Orfeo; Salome; Alcina; Child of our Time; Trojans; Ernani; The Mikado; Don Giovanni (ENO/ Basel/ Oslo); Cosi fan tutte (ENO/ Barbican).

Jack Knowles (Lighting Designer) trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Theatre includes Spring Awakening; Nine Lessons and Carols: stories for a long winter; The Duchess of Malfi; Three Sisters; Shipwreck; Machinal; They Drink it in The Congo; Boy; Carmen Disruption; Game (Almeida); Caroline, or Change (West End/Broadway); Top Girls; Barber Shop Chronicles (National Theatre/World tour);  Beginning (National Theatre/West End); Cleansed (National Theatre); Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp; The End of History; Instructions for Correct Assembly; 2071 (Royal Court); Venice Preserved (RSC); The Windsors: Endgame; The Importance of Being Earnest (West End); The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Elliott & Harper); Anna Karenina; Steel (Sheffield Theatres); Light Falls; The Producers; The Greatest Play in the History of the World (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester/Traverse Theatre/ West End/UK tour); Death of a Salesman; Happy Days; Parliament Square; Our Town; Twelfth Night; A Streetcar Named Desire; Wit; The Skriker; There Has Possibly Been An Incident (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Committee (Donmar Warehouse); Piaf; Wonderland (Nottingham Playhouse); Gin Craze! (Royal and Derngate, Northampton); Good Vibrations (Lyric Theatre, Belfast); Circle Mirror Transformation (HOME, Manchester); The Beacon (Staatstheater Stuttgart); 4.48 Psychosis; Reisende auf einem Bein; Happy Days (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Junkyard; Pygmalion (Headlong); The Forbidden Zone (Salzburg Festival/Schaubühne, Berlin, Barbican); Phaedra (Enniskillen International Beckett Festival); A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (Vienna Burgtheater); Lungs; Yellow Wallpaper (Schaubühne, Berlin); Night Train (Schauspiel, Köln/Avignon Festival/Theatertreffen). Opera includes: La bohéme (Gothenburg Opera). Awards include Knight of Illumination Award for Barber Shop Chronicles.

Adam Cork (Sound Designer/Composer) is composer and co‐lyricist of the documentary musical London Road which had an extended run at The National Theatre Cottesloe before transferring to the Olivier auditorium. He received a Tony Award in 2010 for his music and sound score for Red (Donmar Warehouse/Broadway) and an Olivier Award in 2011 for King Lear (Donmar Warehouse). Adam received the 2011 Evening Standard Award for Best Design for Anna Christie and King Lear (Donmar Warehouse) and the 2011 Critics’ Circle Best Musical for London Road. He was also nominated in 2010 for the Tony Award for Best Score (Music & Lyrics) for ENRON (Broadway/West End). Theatre includes The Hunt; Ink (Almeida, West End/Broadway); The 47th (The Old Vic); The Shark is Broken; Leopoldstadt; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; No Man’s Land; Photograph 51; Don Carlos; Suddenly Last Summer (West End); Travesties (Menier Chocolate Factory/West End/Broadway); Les Blancs; Three Days in the Country (National Theatre); Frost/Nixon (Donmar Warehouse/West End/Broadway); Ivanov (Donmar Warehouse/West End); The Chalk Garden; Creditors; The Wild Duck; Caligula (Donmar Warehouse). Film includes Genius; London Road. Television includes “The Hollow Crown”; “Macbeth”; “Frances Tuesday”; “Re-ignited”; “Imprints.”

Polly Bennett (Movement Director) is a movement director, choreographer and director working across the broadest applications of movement. From professional theatre to Academy Award-winning films, Polly creates physical worlds for theatre, dance, live performance, and film, as well as doing extensive work as a performance coach, workshop facilitator and mentor. She is an Associate Artist of Bush Theatre and National Youth Theatre, and co-founder of The Mono Box. Theatre includes The House of Shades (Almeida); People, Places and Things (National Theatre/West End/St Ann’s Warehouse); The Lehman Trilogy (National Theatre/West End/Broadway); Sweat (Donmar Warehouse/West End); Pomona (National Theatre). Film includes I Wanna Dance with Somebody; Chevalier; Elvis; Bohemian Rhapsody; No Time to Die. Television includes “The Crown”; “The Great.”

Ash J Woodward (Projection Design) specializes in video and projection design for live performance. Woodward has designed and animated content for large-scale shows in the West End, on Broadway and around the world. Work includes hand drawn, 2D and 3D animation, cinematography, visual effects and design work for other live performance genres such as live music, exhibitions, and art installations. Woodward is an Associate Artist at Squint Theatre Company. Woodward’s work in theatre as video and projection designer includes Hex and Dear England at The National Theatre; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child worldwide; Local Hero at Chichester; Famous Five the Musical at Theatr Clwyd; The 47th at the Old Vic; The Glass Menagerie at Duke of York’s; Can I Live? for Complicité; The Beauty Parade at Wales Millennium Centre; Bletchley Park Hut 11A at Bletchley Park; Armadillo at The Yard; Molly for Squint; and Patriots in the West End.

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