Jefferson Mays Tapped to Play Henry Higgins in Pygmalion
Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays has been cast as Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the first production of the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2007-2008 Broadway season. David Grindley, who worked with Mays on the current Broadway revival of Journey's End, will direct. The play is scheduled to begin previews at the American Airlines Theatre on September 14 and open officially on October 11. Pygmalion's limited engagement will end on December 16.
Based on a classical myth, Pygmalion examines the complex business of human relationships in a social world. When Professor Henry Higgins Mays comes across a poor and uneducated Cockney girl named Eliza Doolittle, he makes a bet that he can take Eliza from the gutters of London and pass her off as a society lady, by simply teaching her the right dialect in which to speak. Higgins soon discovers that this task involves much more than knowledge; it involves patience and most importantly, affairs of the heart.
Mays won numerous awards, including the Best Actor Tony, in 2004 for his performance in Doug Wright's one-person drama I Am My Own Wife. He is currently starring as Private Mason in Journey's End. Other New York credits include Moe's Lucky Seven Playwrights Horizons, Lydie Breeze, Quills, Culture of Desire New York Theatre Workshop, Orestes En Garde Arts and Bella, Belle of ByelorussiaWPA. Regional credits include multiple productions of The Importance of Being Earnest and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, plus Missalliance, The Beauty Part, The Cherry Orchart, The Winter's Tale, Tartuffe and many more.
The design team for Pygmalion will include Jonathan Fensom sets and costumes, Jason Taylor lights, Gregory Clarke sound and Majella Hurley dialect coach. Further casting will be announced shortly.
