Kathleen Turner Eyes Role of Alcoholic Nun in New Matthew Lombardo Play High

Stage and screen star Kathleen Turner is getting set to return to the stage as a recovering alcoholic nun in High, a new drama by Looped scribe Matthew Lombardo. According to Variety, the play will premiere in June at a theater and city to be announced, with several other venues to follow.

“After having dabbled in the Hollywood Female Icon genre for shamefully longer than expected, I was eager to create an entirely new character for my next play: a strong-willed, tough-talking recovering alcoholic nun who is sent a 19-year-old heroin addict whom she attempts to get clean and help find God,” Lombardo tells Broadway.com. “The play is titled High and stars the phenomenal Kathleen Turner as Sister Jamison Connolly.” Looped director Rob Ruggiero is attached to the three-character play; no casting has been announced for the teen addict and the priest who runs the treatment facility.

Looped begins previews on February 19 at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, with Valerie Harper starring as Tallulah Bankhead. Lombardo is also the author of Tea at Five, a solo show that starred Kate Mulgrew as Katharine Hepburn.

Turner received Tony nominations for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which transferred to London’s West End after its 2005 Broadway run, and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She has appeared on Broadway in The Graduate and Indiscretions and directed the off-Broadway revival of Crimes of the Heart. Her many screen credits include Marley & Me, Serial Mom, The War of the Roses, Prizzi’s Honor, The Accidental Tourist and Romancing the Stone as well as a recent stint on TV’s Californication.