MTC's To Be or Not to Be Coming to Broadway Next Season

Manhattan Theatre Club will begin its fall season on Broadway with Nick Whitby's adaptation of the 1942 comedy To Be or Not to Be. The play will begin previews at the Biltmore Theatre on September 11 and open on October 2, directed by Casey Nicholaw The Drowsy Chaperone.

At the Polski Theatre in 1939 Warsaw, Joseph and Maria Tura are about to open yet another smash with their theatrical troupe. As the German invasion gets underway, the theater is closed by the censors, forcing the troupe to face desperate times. But when a handsome young bomber pilot enlists their help to catch a spy, what is a group of actors to do? The black comedy To Be or Not to Be is an ingenious commentary on the World War II era and an inspired tribute to the timeless joys of the theater.

To Be or Not to Be will mark Whitby's New York playwriting debut and is based on Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy starring Carole Lombard, Jack Benny and Robert Stack. No word yet on who will star in MTC's Broadway production.