Rufus Sewell & Stanley Townsend to Headline Shining City on Broadway

Rufus Sewell and Stanley Townsend will star in the Broadway production of Conor McPherson's Shining City. Geraldine Hughes and Keith Nobbs will also be featured in the show, which is set to open at the Schoenfeld Theatre on November 10.

Sewell previously appeared on Broadway in Translations, for which he won a Theatre World Award. He was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance as Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Other theatrical credits include London productions of Making in Better, Macbeth and Luther. His film credits include Twenty-One, Dirty Weekend, A Man Of No Importance, Carrington, Hamlet, Cold Comfort Farm, Victory, The Woodlanders, Dark City, Dangerous Beauty, Martha Meet Frank, Daniel & Laurence The Very Thought Of You, Illuminata, In a Savage Land, Bless The Child, A Knight's Tale, Uncorked Higher Love, Carrington, Extreme Ops and the upcoming The Legend of Zorro.

Townsend is the only member of the London production of Shining City to be reprising his role in the U.S. He received a nomination for an Evening Standard Award for his performance in Shining City in the U.K. His other theatrical credits include mountings of Art, Guys and Dolls, Pride and Prejudice, The Dream, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Country Wife and The White Devil.

Hughes is best known for writing and starring in the recent off-Broadway piece Belfast Blues. The show--which earned Hughes the 2003 Los Angeles Ovation Award for Best Solo Performance, the Los Angeles Garland Award for Performance, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Writing--also played in Los Angeles, London, Belfast and Chicago. Hughes' other theatrical credits include Kevin's Bed, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Weir, The Architect, When I Was A Girl, Ourselves Alone and Orson¹s Shadow.

Nobbs won the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award and earned a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor for his performance in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Four. His other Gotham theatrical credits include Romance, Dublin Carol, Fuddy Meers, The Lion in Winter, Free To Be…You & Me, Hope is the Thing With Feathers and Stupid Kids.

Set in Dublin, Shining City tells the story of a man Townsend who comes to a counselor Sewell seeking help. He claims to have seen the ghost of his recently deceased wife. But what begins as an unusual encounter becomes a desperate struggle between the living and the dead--a struggle which will shape and define both men for the rest of their lives.

Shining City, directed by the author, will try out at San Francisco's Curran Theatre from September 13 to October 9. It is scheduled to being Broadway previews on October 18.