Santino Fontana and Jessica Hecht Hop from Brighton Beach Memoirs to A View from the Bridge

Their run in Brighton Beach Memoirs ended abruptly a week after opening night, but Santino Fontana and Jessica Hecht have landed on their feet: The actors will play the pivotal roles of Rodolpho and Beatrice Carbone opposite previously announced stars Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson in the forthcoming Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. Performances begin at the Cort Theatre on December 28, with opening on January 24, 2010. The play is set for a 14-week limited engagement, directed by Gregory Mosher.

Also joining the cast are Tony-winning playwright/screenwriter/actor Michael Cristofer as the narrator Alfieri and Corey Stoll as Marco. Full casting will be announced shortly.

In A View from the Bridge, Schreiber is cast as Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman married to Beatrice (Hecht) but obsessed with his 17-year-old niece Catherine (Johansson). When Catherine falls in love with a newly arrived immigrant (Fontana) Eddie’s jealousy erupts in a rage that consumes him, his family, and his world.

A View from the Bridge debuted on Broadway in 1955 and was most recently revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company in 1997 in a production that won Tonys for Best Revival and Best Actor for Anthony LaPaglia as Eddie.

Fontana played Stanley Jerome in Brighton Beach Memoirs (which opened at the Nederlander Theatre on October 25 and closed on November 1) and had been scheduled to appear in the same role in the cancelled revival of Simon’s Broadway Bound. He appeared on Broadway in Billy Elliot and Sunday in the Park with George and in the off-Broadway revival of The Fantasticks.

Hecht played Blanche Morton in Brighton Beach and had been scheduled to play the same role in Broadway Bound. Her Broadway credits include Miller’s After the Fall, The Last Night of Ballyhoo and Julius Caesar. Off-Broadway, she has appeared in The House in Town, Howard Katz, Flesh & Blood, The Fourth Sister, Lobster Alice, Stop Kiss and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.