Frances Sternhagen in Talks to Join Company of Broadway Magnolias

Broadway.com has learned that Frances Sternhagen is in talks to star alongside Delta Burke and Christine Ebersole in the upcoming Broadway production of Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias. She would play wealthy eccentric Clairee Belcher in the play.

Sternhagen is currently starring in The Foreigner off-Broadway. She has spent five decades making her name on the New York stage. She has been nominated for seven Tony Awards for The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, The Good Doctor, Equus, Angel, On Golden Pond, The Heiress and Morning's at Seven and won Best Featured Actress in a Play Tony Awards for The Good Doctor and The Heiress. Her other Broadway credits include The Skin of Our Teeth, Viva Madison Avenue!, Great Day in the Morning, The Right Honourable Gentleman, The Cocktail Party, Cock-A-Doodle Dandy, The Playboy of the Western World, All Over, Mary Stuart, Enemies, The Father, Grown Ups, You Can't Take It With You and Home Front. In addition to The Foreigner, her off-Broadway credits include Long Day's Journey Into Night, Driving Miss Daisy, Remembrance, A Perfect Ganesh, The Exact Center of the Universe, Talking Heads and Echoes of the War. She is probably best known to audiences across the country for her recurring roles on Cheers for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards, ER and Sex and the City which earned her a third Emmy nomination.

Steel Magnolias is set it a small town beauty parlor in Louisiana and follows the lives of several women who often meet there. The story pays particular attention to M'Lynn Ebersole and her daughter Shelby. Both a comedy and a tearjerker, there are eccentric characters galore in the play, including beauty-shop owner Truvy Burke and widower Clairee.

The original production of the play opened off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in 1987 and quickly moved to the larger Lucille Lortel Theatre, where it ran for 1,126 performances. Kate Wilkinson played Clairee in the original company and Olympia Dukakis took on the role in the popular 1989 film version.

Broadway's Steel Magnolias, directed by Jason Moore, is aiming for an April 4 opening. A production spokesperson could not confirm the casting of Sternhagen.