High Star Kathleen Turner Will Play Molly Ivins at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse

Golden Globe winner and Tony Award nominee Kathleen Turner, who is currently starring in Matthew Lombardo's High on Broadway, will take on the role of larger-than-life columnist Molly Ivins in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. The one-woman show, written by sisters Allison Engel and Margaret Engel, is expected to be produced in January or February of 2012, though the theater has yet to announce an opening date.

This West Coast premiere production is a reprise for Turner, who originated the bioplay in a 2010 run at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. In Red Hot Patriot, Turner stars as the brassy Texan reporter whose liberal journalism skyrocketed her to the national stage. From writing Elvis Presley’s New York Times obituary to becoming the most widely read self-proclaimed “pain in the ass to whatever powers come to be,” Ivins made rabid fans and enemies alike with her sharp-tongued humor and unabashed political criticism.

Turner received Tony nominations for her roles in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which transferred to London’s West End after its 2005 Broadway run, and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She has also appeared on Broadway in The Graduate and Indiscretions. She previously appeared on the Los Angeles stage in 2007 in the national tour of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and reprised her role as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate for L.A. Theatre Works. Her many screen credits include Marley & Me, Serial Mom, The War of the Roses and The Accidental Tourist, as well as Prizzi’s Honor and Romancing the Stone for which she won Golden Globe Awards.