Jason Butler Harner and Amy Irving Join Coast of Utopia Cast

Jason Butler Harner and Amy Irving will join previously announced cast members Billy Crudup, Richard Easton, Jennifer Ehle, Josh Hamilton, David Harbour, Ethan Hawke, Brían F. O'Byrne and Martha Plimpton in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia.

Harner, who will play the novelist Ivan Turgenev, appeared in the LCT off-Broadway production of Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme. His other off-Broadway credits include The Paris Letter, Juno and the Paycock, An Experiment with an Air Pump, Henry VIII, Macbeth, Berlin, Speech and Hedda Gabler. His other theatrical credits include mountings of The Invention of Love, Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Transit of Venus, Galileo and Picnic.

Irving will play two characters in different parts of the play, Varvara Bakunin the mother of Ethan Hawke's character, Michael Bakunin and Maria Ogarev the estranged wife of Josh Hamiton's character, the poet Nicholas Ogarev. In the last few seasons, Irving has been seen off-Broadway in The Guys, Ghosts and A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop. She has appeared on Broadway in Amadeus, Heartbreak House, Broken Glass and Three Sisters. Her feature film credits include Carrie, Yentl for which she earned an Oscar nomination, Micki and Maude, Crossing Delancey, I'm Not Rappaport, Deconstructing Harry, The Rage: Carrie 2, Traffic, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Tuck Everlasting and Hide and Seek.

Beginning in mid-19th century Russia during the repressive reign of Tsar Nicholas I, The Coast of Utopia tells the panoramic story of a group of Russian writers, headed by the radical theorist and editor Alexander Herzen O'Byrne, the novelist Ivan Turgenev Harner , the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky Crudup, the aristocrat-turned-anarchist Michael Bakunin Hawke and the poet Nicholas Ogarev Hamilton, who lead a band of like-minded countrymen in a revolutionary movement in which they strive to change and fix a political system by using their minds as their only weapon.

The Coast of Utopia, directed by Jack O'Brien, will have scattered openings. Part One—Voyage is scheduled to begin performances on October 17 and open on November 5, Part Two—Shipwreck will start on December 5 and open on December 21, and Part Three—Salvage is set to begin on January 30 and have its official bow on February 15.