Laura Linney Headed Back to Broadway in Margulies' Time Stands Still

Stage and film star Laura Linney will headline the New York premiere of Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway home, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. MTC had previously announced that it would produce the play off-Broadway at New York City Center Stage I. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, Time Stands Still will begin previews on January 5, 2010 and open on January 28. MTC now has two plays by Margulies on its 2009-2010 Broadway schedule, with a revival of his 1997 drama Collected Stories on tap for April 2010.

Time Stands Still centers on James and Sarah (Linney), a journalist and a photographer, who have been together for nine years and share a passion for documenting the realities of war. But when injuries force them to return home to New York, the adventurous couple confronts the prospect of a more conventional life. The play asks the question: Are we supposed to deny ourselves ordinary happiness because there’s misery in the world?

Sullivan directed the world premiere production of Time Stands Still at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles in February 2009 with Anna Gunn as Sarah and a cast that also included David Harbour, Alicia Silverstone and Robin Thomas. No other casting for the Broadway production has been announced.

Linney received Tony Award nominations for The Crucible and Margulies’ Sight Unseen, a play she had appeared in off-Broadway 12 years earlier in a different role, winning a Theatre World Award. Other Broadway credits include Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Uncle Vanya, Honour, Holiday, Hedda Gabler and The Seagull. She made her off-Broadway debut in MTC’s production of Beggars in a House of Plenty. Onscreen, Linney received Oscar nominations for The Savages, Kinsey and You Can Count on Me and starred in The Squid and the Whale, Love Actually, Mystic River, Absolute Power and many more. She won Emmy Awards for the HBO miniseries John Adams and for a guest stint on Frasier.