Anne Hathaway to Star in Central Park Production of Twelfth Night

Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway will play Viola in Central Park next summer in a production of Twelfth Night to be directed by Daniel Sullivan. The Public Theater announced that the Shakespeare comedy will be the first production of the 2009 season in the Delacorte Theatre, running from June 9 to July 12. No other casting has been announced.

Following Twelfth Night, JoAnne Akalaitis will direct Euripides’s The Bacchae, translated by Nicholas Rudall and featuring original music by Philip Glass. The play will run at the Delacorte from August 11 to September 6.

Hathaway will make her Public Theater debut as Shakespeare’s beloved romantic heroine, shipwrecked in the enchanted dukedom of Illyria with her twin brother Sebastian. Before achieving movie stardom in films ranging from her Oscar-nominated role in Rachel Getting Married to star turns in Bride Wars, Brokeback Mountain, The Devil Wears Prada, Get Smart, Becoming Jane and two Princess Diaries movies, the actress played the lead role in the City Center Encores! production of Carnival winning the Clarence Derwent Award and Paper Mill Playhouse productions of Jane Eyre, Gigi and Once Upon a Mattress. Hathaway reportedly participated in a reading of Promises Promises late last year.

Twelfth Night has been produced by the Public in Central Park six times since 1958, most recently in 2002 in a production that starred Julia Stiles as Viola and Zach Braff as Sebastian.