Oscar Winner Frances McDormand to Return to Broadway in Good People Next Year

Academy Award winner Frances McDormand is returning to the Broadway stage to headline David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People. As previously announced, the new play will be produced by Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre starting in February 2011.

An Oscar winner for Fargo, McDormand was last seen on Broadway in the revival of The Country Girl in 2008. She also appeared on the Great White Way in Awake and Sing! in 1984 and A Streetcar Named Desire in 1988, receiving a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Stella. Recently, she was seen off-Broadway in the Wooster Group production of North Atlantic. Other films include Raising Arizona, Mississippi Burning, Miller’s Crossing, Short Cuts, Lone Star, Wonder Boys, Almost Famous, Laurel Canyon, North Country, Friends with Money, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and Burn After Reading.

Good People is set in Southie, a Boston neighborhood where a night on the town means a few rounds of bingo, where this month’s paycheck covers last month’s bills and where Margie Walsh (McDormand) has just been let go from yet another job. Facing eviction and scrambling to catch a break, Margie thinks an old fling who has made it out of Southie might be her ticket to a fresh new start. But is this apparently self-made man secure enough to face his humble beginnings? Margie is about to risk what little she has left to find out.

Directed by Daniel Sullivan, Good People will start performances on February 8, 2011 with an opening night set for March 3, 2011.