John Lithgow Headed Back to Broadway in Title Role of The Columnist

Two-time Tony Award winner John Lithgow is headed back to Broadway to play Joseph Alsop, the title role in Manhattan Theatre Club’s world premiere production of David Auburn’s The Columnist. The play will begin previews at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on April 3, 2012, and open on April 25, directed by Daniel Sullivan.

The Columnist is set in mid-century America, when columnists are kings and Joseph Alsop (Lithgow) wears the crown. Joe is beloved, feared and courted in equal measure by the Washington political world at whose center he sits. But as the 1960s dawn and America undergoes dizzying change, the intense political drama Joe is embroiled in becomes deeply personal as well. Lithgow is no stranger to the world of columnists, having played gossip writers in a Tony-winning performance in Sweet Smell of Success and off-Broadway in Mr. and Mrs. Fitch.

Lithgow won his first Tony for The Changing Room and has appeared on Broadway in All My Sons, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, My Fat Friend, Trelawney of the Wells, Comedians, Anna Christie, Bedroom Farce, Beyond Therapy, M. Butterfly, The Front Page and Retreat from Moscow. A five-time Emmy winner, he is best known for his performance as Dick Solomon on 3rd Rock from the Sun and for his season-long stint as a serial killer on Dexter. Lithgow recently played Neil Patrick Harris’ father on How I Met Your Mother. On the big screen, he received Oscar nominations for The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment. A writer of children's books and the solo show Stories By Heart, he has completed a memoir, Drama: An Actor’s Education, that will be released in fall 2011.

Auburn and Sullivan collaborated on MTC’s production of Proof, which won the Best Play Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize in 2001.