Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber Promise a 'Godzilla vs. King Kong' Battle of Stage Titans in Doubt

The Broadway Show caught up with the stars of Doubt: A Parable, John Patrick Shanley’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play that is returning to Broadway for the first time in nearly 20 years. Directed by Scott Ellis, performances begin on February 2 at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s newly renamed Todd Haimes Theatre. Opening night is set for February 29. As Shanley himself describes the stars at the center of this anticipated revival, audiences are in for a fiery battle of wills: “It’s Godzilla vs. King Kong.”

Tony winners Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber lead the cast as Sister Aloysius, the conservative nun at the helm of a Bronx Catholic school, and Father Flynn, the progressive parish priest she suspects of inappropriate conduct with a student. Daly initially approached the opportunity to do the play with caution and a bit of skepticism: “I read it and wondered if it was in any way dated after 20 years,” she told The Broadway Show. The universe answered immediately with a New York Times exposé on the corruption within the Baltimore diocese. “Signs and portents,” she said. “This is a story that needs to be told again.”

“This play is perfect” added Schreiber, who previously mined the subject of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church as journalist Marty Baron in the 2015 film Spotlight. After poring through the text, he said, “I just realized that it’s such a layered and nuanced play and that there was a reason to do it now.”

“Every time I read it I come away thinking something different,” said Quincy Tyler Bernstine, who plays Mrs. Muller, the mother of the student at the play’s epicenter. Zoe Kazan rounds out the powerful quartet as the fledgling Sister James, and she, more than anything, is thrilled to be back in a world where plays like Doubt can be witnessed in the flesh. “I felt this tremendous gratitude to have a communal experience,” she said. “I’m very excited to feel this event happen live every night.”