Jane Alexander to Star as Djuna Barnes in What of the Night? at MCC

Broadway.com has learned that Jane Alexander will return to the New York stage in an MCC Theater production of What of the Night?, a one-woman biographical play about reclusive writer Djuna Barnes. The piece, written by Alexander, Birgitta Trommler and Noreen Tomassi, is expected to begin performances at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on March 16.

Barnes was born in New York, but became famous while living in Europe, where she moved in 1920. Her first novel Ryder came out in 1928. Then, in the mid-1930s, she wrote the story that would make her famous, Nightwood. Many publishing houses rejected it until T.S. Eliot urged Faber & Faber to put out the text. The book, a tale of doomed heterosexual and homosexual love said to be partly based on her own troubled affair with artist Thelma Wood, established her as a major literary force. But while her style earned comparisons to greats such as James Joyce and Nathaniel West, she faded into obscurity after Nightwood, publishing only one more major work, The Antiphon. At the start of World War II, she moved back to New York and lived a solitary life in Greenwich Village until her death in 1982.

Alexander has earned great acclaim for her work on stage and on screen. She won a 1969 Theatre World Award and Tony Award for her Broadway debut in The Great White Hope. She has also earned Tony nominations for her performances in 6 Rms Riv Vu, Find Your Way Home, First Monday in October, The Visit, The Sisters Rosensweig and Honour. She received her first Oscar nomination for her work in the screen adaptation of The Great White Hope and has since received nominations for All the President's Men, Kramer vs. Kramer and Testament. Alexander previously starred in a workshop production of What of the Night? in Germany.

Trommler will make her New York directorial debut with this production.