Ben Stiller, Edie Falco headed to Broadway in revival of ‘House of Blue Leaves’
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Gaylord Focker and Nurse Jackie, together at last.
Actors Ben Stiller and Edie Falco are said to be starring in an upcoming Broadway revival of John Guare’s comedy ‘The House of Blue Leaves,’ according to a report in Variety. The production, which is expected to open some time in the spring of 2011, will be directed by David Cromer, who earlier this week was named a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ grant. Scott Rudin is producing the revival.
Stiller will play the lead role of Artie Shaughnessy, a zookeeper from Queens who is juggling a schizophrenic wife and a nutty mistress. The ‘Meet the Fockers’ actor appeared in the 1986 Broadway production, in the role of Artie’s unhinged son, Ronnie.
Falco is expected to play Artie’s wife, appropriately named Bananas, while the actress playing the mistress will be announced later. The Emmy-winning ‘Nurse Jackie’ star last appeared on Broadway in a revival of Marsha Norman’s ‘’Night, Mother’ in 2004. Earlier this year, she appeared in an off-Broadway production of Chloe Moss’ ‘This Wide Night’ at Playwrights Horizons.
Guare’s comedy, which is set during the pope’s 1965 visit to New York, was first performed on Broadway with a cast that included John Mahoney, Swoosie Kurtz, Stockard Channing and Stiller.
Cromer recently directed the successful off-off-Broadway production of Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town.’ Later this season, he is expected to direct Nicole Kidman in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ ‘Sweet Bird of Youth.’
‘The House of Blue Leaves’ received a revival production at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum in 2008, directed by Nicholas Martin and starring John Pankow, Kate Burton and Jane Kaczmarek. Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote that the Taper production was so ‘revitalizing that Guare’s ruthless farce seems to be not just speaking directly to our age but mirroring its most pervasive pathologies.’
-- David Ng
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