Kathleen Chalfant to Star in Great Expectations Off-Broadway

Kathleen Chalfant will star as Miss Havisham in a stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations at the Lucille Lortel Theatre this fall. The TheatreworksUSA mounting is scheduled to run November 8 through December 3.

Chalfant was nominated for a 1993 Tony Award for her featured performance in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. Other Broadway credits include M. Butterfly, Angels in America: Perestroika and Racing Demon. She received critical acclaim and the Drama Desk, Obie, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle awards for her performance in the off-Broadway play Wit. Her other off-Broadway credits include Nine Armenians, Twelve Dreams, Henry V, True History and Real Adventures, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, the Encores! mounting of Bloomer Girl, Far Away, Talking Heads, Savannah Bay, The Last Letter, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom and Five by Tenn. Chalfant is the recipient of an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. From 2001-2004 when it was cancelled, she had a recurring role on the television series The Guardian.

Great Expectation follows a young orphan boy through adulthood, navigating London's society circles and his relationships with a wealthy woman and her haughty adopted daughter. Bathsheba Doran adapted the book for this stage incarnation. Will Pomerantz will direct.

In addition to Great Expectations, TheatreworksUSA will present a musical adaptation of Cynthia Rylant's Henry and Mudge December 13 through January 21, 2007 and a musical version of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables March 21, 2007, through May 6, 2007 as part of its 2006-2007 mainstage season at the Lortel.