Norbert Leo Butz, Abigail Breslin & More Set for The New Group's 2016-2017 Season

Two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Catch Me If You Can, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels), Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine, Scream Queens) and more have been tapped for The New Group’s 2016-2017 season. The shows will run off-Broadway at the buzzy Pershing Square Signature Center, where the Sutton Foster-led Sweet Charity is currently running.

Jill Eikenberry, John Epperson, Larry Pine, Wallace Shawn, Claudia Shear, Annapurna Sriram and Michael Tucker will star in the U.S. premiere of Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House. Directed by Scott Elliott, the show follows a playwright celebrating the 10th anniversary of the opening of a flop play and is scheduled to begin previews on January 31, 2017, officially open on February 16 and run through March 12. Further casting will be announced later.

Next up, Breslin will appear in All the Fine Boys, alongside Isabelle Fuhrman, Joe Tippett and Alex Wolff. The new play from writer and director Erica Schmidt is set in suburban South Carolina in the late '80s, where fourteen-year-old best friends Jenny (Breslin) and Emily (Fuhrman) are hungry for experience and eager for "real life" to begin. The world premiere is scheduled to start performances on February 14 and play a limited engagement through March 26. Opening night is set for March 1.

This will be followed by Butz joining the previously announced Zosia Mamet and Maura Tierney in the final show of the season, the world premiere of Hamish Linklater’s The Whirligig. Directed by Elliott, the off-Broadway engagement will begin previews on May 2 and open on May 21. When, after much time away, Kristina (Tierney) is back in Berkshire County, word spreads fast that she and her ex-husband (Butz) are caring for their estranged, ailing daughter Julie. Broken-hearted and giddy with love and confusion, surprising visitors from Julie's complicated past, including her childhood best friend Trish (Mamet) and her former drug dealer, practically trip over each other to reach the young woman they thought they'd lost years before but still feel so deeply connected to.