Mamet's Oleanna, Starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, Is Broadway Bound

It’s official: The previously hinted at Broadway transfer of the hit L.A. revival of David Mamet’s Oleanna has found a New York home. The production, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles and directed by Doug Hughes, will begin previews on September 29 at the Golden Theatre and open on October 11.

Oleanna opened to rave reviews at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles on June 5, presented by Center Theatre Group by special arrangement with Jeffrey Finn, and is currently playing through July 12.

The story of an explosive emotional power struggle between a female college student and her fortysomething professor, Oleanna premiered in 1992 at the Back Bay Theater Company in Cambridge, MA, directed by Mamet and starring Rebecca Pidgeon (the playwright’s wife) and quintessential Mamet man William H. Macy (who stepped in for Jeremy Piven last season in Broadway’s Speed-the-Plow). A few months later Oleanna moved to off-Broadway’s Orpheum Theatre, where it ran for more than 15 months. A Mamet-helmed 1994 film, with Macy and Debra Eisenstadt, was less successful.

Pullman most recently starred in Edward Albee’s Peter and Jerry at Second Stage and in The Subject Was Roses at the Kennedy Center. On Broadway, he originated the role of the animal-loving adulterer in Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Pullman’s many feature films include Independence Day, Lost Highway, Sleepless in Seattle, Ruthless People, While You Were Sleeping, The Grudge, Spaceballs, Scary Movie 4, Bottle Shock, Noble Son and the recently released Surveillance.

In addition to the current L.A. production, Stiles starred in a 2004 London mounting of Oleanna opposite Aaron Eckhart. She starred in Twelfth Night in Central Park in 2002 and in the off-Broadway production of James Lapine’s Fran’s Bed. Her feature films include 10 Things I Hate About You, Save the Last Dance, Mona Lisa Smiles, two David Mamet films (State and Main and Edmond) and the three Bourne movies (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum). Stiles will make her Broadway debut in Oleanna.

The Broadway production of Oleanna will feature scenic design by Neil Patel, costume design by Catherine Zuber, lighting design by Donald Holder and fight direction by Rick Sordelet.