Stockard Channing and Jane Alexander Set for Westport's Breath of Life

Tony Award winners Stockard Channing and Jane Alexander will star in David Hare’s The Breath of Life at the Westport Country Playhouse, beginning performances September 29. Mark Lamos, the theater's artistic director, will helm the play, which runs through October 17.

The Breath of Life follows the meeting of two women, Frances (Channing) and Madeleine (Alexander), whose lives are linked through their relationships with the same man, an English lawyer named Martin. Over the course of one night and one day on the Isle of Wight, the pair reflect on their lives and shared romantic involvements with Martin. Hare’s play made its London premiere in 2002, famously starring Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench.

Channing earned a Tony Award nomination for her turn in last season’s revival of Pal Joey. Additional Broadway credits include a Tony Award winning run in Joe Egg, as well as The House of Blue Leaves, Love Letters, Six Degrees of Separation, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, The Little Foxes and The Lion in Winter. Her film credits include Grease, Without a Trace, Meet the Applegates, an Academy Award nominated performance in Six Degrees of Separation, To Wong Foo…, The First Wives Club, Must Love Dogs and Multiple Sarcasms. Numerous television credits include The Stockard Channing Show, The Room Upstairs, Road to Avonlea, Batman Beyond, Out of Practice and The West Wing.

Alexander won a Tony Award for her performance in The Great White Hope. Additional Broadway credits include Hamlet, First Monday in October, Goodbye Fidel, Monday After the Miracle, The Night of the Iguana, Shadowlands, The Visit, The Sisters Rosenweig and Honor. She has been nominated for four Academy Awards, for The Great White Hope, All the Presidents Men, Kramer vs. Kramer and Testament, and has appeared in films such as The Cider House Rules, Sunshine State, The Ring, Feast of Love and Terminator Salvation. TV credits include Death Be Not Proud, Eleanor and Franklin, Calamity Jane, Law & Order, Carry Me Home, Warm Springs and Tell Me You Love Me.