Mother Play’s Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jessica Lange and Jim Parsons Introduce Paula Vogel’s Story of Family and Forgiveness

Paula Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright behind How I Learned to Drive and the Tony-nominated drama Indecent, returns to Broadway with the world premiere of Mother Play, directed by Tina Landau. Beginning performances April 3 ahead of an April 25 opening at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater, the show’s cast is the illustrious trio of Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jessica Lange and Jim Parsons.

“The yes was strong,” Parsons tells The Broadway Show about joining this play. “Everybody that’s come into contact with it has some sort of connection with it. [Vogel] taps into something that reminds everybody of what it is to be a part of a family.”

“It covers a huge arc of emotion,” adds Lange, whose last turn on Broadway was her 2016 Tony-winning performance in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. “There’s humor, there’s sorrow, there’s tragedy. It is quite extraordinary.”

Keenan-Bolger, who was also last seen on Broadway in her Tony-winning performance as Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, particularly appreciates the play’s nudge toward self-reflection. “When you are in a play about family and about death and about forgiveness, you can’t help but reflect on your own life and where you are in that process yourself,” she says. As an actor, she adds, “our outside life is always being brought into the room. And this play is no exception.”