Tony Winner Frank Wood Will Star Opposite Forest Whitaker in Hughie; Broadway Dates & Theater Set

Tony winner Frank Wood will join the previously announced Oscar winner Forest Whitaker in a limited engagement of Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie. Directed by Tony winner Michael Grandage, the Broadway revival will begin previews on February 5, 2016 and officially open on February 25 at the Booth Theatre. The venue is currently home to Hand to God, which is set to shutter on January 3.

Wood won the Tony Award for Side Man; he has also been seen on Broadway in Clybourne Park, August: Osage County, Born Yesterday and Hollywood Arms. His film resume includes Gold, Changeling, Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Dan in Real Life, Thirteen Days, Pollock, People I Know, In America, Down to You, Royal Tennenbaums, Greetings from Tim Buckley and The Missing Person. Wood's TV credits include The Newsroom, The Good Wife, Modern Family, Elementary, Blue Bloods, The Knick, Girls, Flight of the Conchords, Grey’s Anatomy, Sopranos and Law & Order: SVU.

Hughie is set in the lobby of a small midtown hotel on the West Side of Manhattan. Whitaker plays Erie Smith, a drunken, small time hustler who is mourning the recent death of the hotel’s night clerk, Hughie. Erie regales the new night clerk (Wood) with tall-tales of his glory days and times spent with Hughie.

The two-hander premiered on Broadway in 1964 with Jason Robards in the role of “Erie” Smith; it was last seen on the Great White Way in 1996 in a production directed by and starring Al Pacino.