After Successful Reading, The Normal Heart Eyes Broadway Run

After a successful one-night-only reading in October, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart is looking to return to Broadway in a full production this spring, according to The New York Times. Performances could begin as early as March with the possibility of Tony winner Joe Mantello reprising his role as Ned Weeks.

"We are now working on putting all the elements together, working on budgets, inquiring if the appropriate theater would be available, cast availability, schedules, etc.," producer Daryl Roth said. Kramer said Tony winner Joel Grey would most likely return as director should the production come together.

The production would mark a return to acting for Mantello, who has not acted on a Broadway stage since he received a Tony nomination for his turn as Louis in Angels in America in 1993. He has since gone on to direct many high-profile musicals and plays, including Wicked, 9 to 5, Pal Joey, Three Days of Rain, Glengarry Glen Ross, Love! Valour! Compassion! and November. He won Tony Awards for his direction of Assassins and Take Me Out.

No other casting has been determined although Glenn Close, Victor Garber, Patrick Wilson, Michael Cerveris, John Benjamin Hickey, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jason Butler Harner, Santino Fontana and Jack McBrayer participated in the reading. The actors' further involvement would depend on their upcoming schedules, with Kramer noting that Close was a last-minute addition to the cast and he believes her calendar is already booked for the spring.

This would mark the first Broadway run of The Normal Heart. The show, which focuses on the terrifying early years of the AIDS epidemic in New York, first played off-Broadway at the Public Theater, opening on April 21, 1985, for a run of 294 performances. The late Brad Davis opened as Ned Weeks and was later replaced by Grey. The play was revived at the Public in 2004 with Raul Esparza as Ned.