Patrick Stewart to Star on Broadway in Mamet's A Life in the Theatre
Patrick Stewart will return to the New York stage in the fall of 2010 in the Broadway premiere of David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre. The production will be directed by Neil Pepe, who helmed the hit 2008 Broadway revival of Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow. Stewart’s co-star in the two-hander has not been announced, and a theater and opening date have not been set.
Describing life in the footlights from an actor’s point of view, A Life in the Theatre focuses on the relationship between two thespians: Robert (Stewart), an older, experienced performer; and John, a relative newcomer. Though Robert’s guidance is welcomed by John at first, as the play progresses Robert falters as an actor and mentor, and John emerges as a mature actor. Mamet was inspired to write A Life in the Theatre by what he had observed backstage as well as by his own experiences in his early career as an actor.
Stewart headlined a 2005 London production of A Life in the Theatre that co-starred TV star Joshua Jackson (Fringe, Dawson’s Creek) as John. A Tony nominee for the 2008 Broadway revival of Macbeth, Stewart most recently played the dual role as Claudius and The Ghost in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet, winning an Olivier Award, and starred opposite Ian McKellen in a sold-out 2009 West End production of Waiting for Godot. Other Broadway credits include The Caretaker, The Tempest, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan and Stewart’s acclaimed one-man version of A Christmas Carol.
A Life in the Theatre debuted at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in February 1977, starring Joe Mantegna and Mike Nussbaum and directed by Gregory Mosher. Later that year, Gerald Gutierrez directed Peter Evans and Ellis Rabb in the New York premiere of the show, which ran for 288 performances at the Lucille Lortel Theatre off-Broadway. In 1993, a TV-movie version of the play starred Jack Lemmon and Matthew Broderick. F. Murray Abraham and Anthony Fusco headlined the last New York production of the drama at the Jewish Repertory Theatre in 1992.
A Life in the Theatre will be produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel and Steve Traxler, the lead producers of Mamet’s Race and Speed-the-Plow.
