Lumley, Pierce & Rylance Team Up for La Bête on West End and Broadway

Joanna Lumley, David Hyde Pierce and Mark Rylance will team up for a revival of David Hirson's La Bête in London and on Broadway, according to the Daily Mail. Directed by Matthew Warchus, the comedy will play a limited run in the West End before transferring to New York in the fall.

Lumley is best known for playing boozy fashion director Patsy Stone on the British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous. She has also appeared on the British shows The New Avengers, Sapphire and Steel and Sensitive Skin. Although she will make her Broadway debut in La Bête, her U.K. stage credits include The Cherry Orchard, Hedda Gabler, Private Lives and Blithe Spirit.

Beloved for his Emmy-winning work as Niles Crane on Frasier, Pierce was last seen on Broadway in Accent on Youth. He won a Tony Award for Curtains and has also appeared in Spamalot, The Heidi Chronicles and Beyond Therapy.

Rylance recently received an Olivier Award nomination for his work in the play Jerusalem, which is currently playing in the West End and expected on Broadway later in the year. He made his Broadway debut in 2008 in the farce Boeing-Boeing, winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

Set in 17th century France, the Moliere-inspired La Bête is a farce written in iambic pentameter that tells of a government-sponsored theater troupe that is shaken up when the group's patron insists that a buffoonish street performer joins the company.

Co-produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the 1991 Broadway premiere of La Bête featured in its cast Dylan Baker, Michael Cumpsty, John Michael Higgins and the Tony-nominated Tom McGowan, but ran for only 25 performances. The play had better luck when Alan Cumming headlined the London production, which won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy.