Amy Ryan to Star as Stella in the Roundabout's Streetcar

Broadway.com has learned that Amy Ryan, who played Stella in the Kennedy Center production of A Streetcar Named Desire this summer, will again take on the role for the upcoming Roundabout Theatre Company mounting of the Tennessee Williams classic. She joins headliner Natasha Richardson.

Ryan received positive reviews for her portrayal of Stella at the Kennedy Center. Charles Isherwood wrote in Variety: "Ryan's Stella is simply perfection… Stella's last cries of remorse are as painful to hear as any of Blanche's anguished arias. An undersung New York stage actress who always turns in meticulous work, Ryan outdoes herself here."

Ryan is a Roundabout alum, having earned a Tony nomination for her work on the company's Uncle Vanya revival in 2000 and also appeared in the company's Broadway productions of The Women and Three Sisters. Ryan's only other credit on the Great White Way is The Sisters Rosensweig. Her off-Broadway credits include Crimes of the Heart, Saved, Imagining Brad, As Bees in Honey Drown and Dublin Carol. Prior to Streetcar, she is set to star with Alison Pill in Christopher Shinn's On the Mountain for Playwrights Horizons.

A Streetcar Named Desire tells the story of the mental and emotional demise of the determined, yet fragile, Blanche DuBois Richardson in the squalid French Quarter apartment of her married sister Ryan and animalistic brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. As previously reported, John C. Reilly is in talks to play Stanley Kowalski in the Roundabout production.

A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Edward Hall, is scheduled to officially open on April 24 at Studio 54.