Gazzara and Wanamaker to Headline Awake and Sing! Revival at Belasco

Tony nominees Ben Gazzara and Zoe Wanamaker will headline the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! at the Belasco Theatre. The new staging, by The Light in the Piazza director Bartlett Sher, will start performances on March 23 and will also feature Lauren Ambrose, Ned Eisenberg, Jonathan Hadary, Peter Kybart, Pablo Schreiber and Richard Topol.

Gazzara created the role of Brick in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and received Tony Award nominations for the 1967 revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hughie/Duet and A Hatful of Rain. Most recently, he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for the off-Broadway solo play Nobody Don't Like Yogi.

One of England's leading actresses, Wanamaker received Tony nominations for Electra, Loot and Piaf. She appears regularly on the London stage in productions at the National Theatre most recently His Girl Friday and Battle Royal the Royal Shakespeare Company Trevor Nunn's production of Once in a Lifetime, for which she won an Olivier Award, Othello, Mother Courage and Her Children, the Donmar Warehouse Electra, The Glass Menagerie, The Royal Court The Old Neighborhood, as well as in the West End.

Best known for her portrayal of Claire Fisher on the hit HBO series Six Feet Under, Ambrose appeared last year in the National Theatre production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child in London and will make her New York stage debut in Awake and Sing! Eisenberg was seen on Broadway in Julie Taymor's The Green Bird and off-Broadway in The Red Address and King John. Hadary has appeared on Broadway in All Shook Up, The Best Man, As Is, Torch Song Trilogy and Gypsy, which earned him a 1990 Tony Award nomination. Kybart's credits include Judgement at Nuremberg and The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway and Beckett/Albee off-Broadway. Schreiber is currently appearing in Mr. Marmalade off-Broadway and was also seen in Manuscript earlier this year. Topol's credits include Julius Caesar on Broadway and Omnium Gatherum off-Broadway.

Awake and Sing! is the story of a Jewish family in the Bronx struggling through the Depression. Widely considered Odets' masterpiece, the drama premiered on Broadway in 1935 and was a resounding hit for the now-legendary Group Theatre.

Sher will utilize the same team that won Tonys for the design of The Light in the Piazza for the show--Michael Yeargan sets, Catherine Zuber costumes and Christopher Akerlind lighting. Awake and Sing! is set to open on April 17.