Boyd Gaines, Jay O. Sanders Join Broadway Revival of Pygmalion

Tony Award winner Boyd Gaines and Jay O. Sanders will join the previously announced Claire Danes and Jefferson Mays in the Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Gaines and Sanders have been cast as Colonel Pickering and Alfred P. Doolittle alongside Danes as Eliza Doolittle and Mays as Henry Higgins. David Grindley's production begins previews at the American Airlines Theater on September 21, with opening night set for October 18.

Also featured will be Helen Carey London Assurance as Mrs. Higgins, Brenda Wehle Stuff Happens as Mrs. Pearce, Kerry Bishé My Name Is Rachel Corrie as Clara Eynsford Hill, Kierian Campion Our Town as Freddy Eynsford Hill, Sandra Shipley The Road to Moscow as Mrs. Eynsford Hill, Jonathan Fielding and Robin Moseley as Bystanders and Karen Walsh as the Parlour Maid.

Pygmalion, which inspired the musical My Fair Lady, premiered on Broadway in 1914 at the Park Theatre and subsequently was revived on Broadway in 1927, 1938, 1945 and 1987. When Professor Henry Higgins Mays comes across a poor and uneducated Cockney girl named Eliza Doolittle Danes, 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.

Gaines recently received his fourth Tony Award nomination for last season's Broadway revival of Journey's End. Having given notable performances in both plays and musicals, he previously won three Tonys for Contact, She Loves Me and The Heidi Chronicles, which marked his Broadway debut in 1989. He has also appeared on Broadway in The Show Off, Company, Cabaret, Anything Goes and Twelve Angry Men. He just completed a brief run as Herbie in the City Center Encores! staging of Gypsy opposite Patti LuPone.

Sanders is currently appearing as Bottom in the Shakespeare in the Park production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Last year, he won a special ensemble Drama Desk Award for being part of the cast of Stuff Happens at the Public Theater. On Broadway, Sanders made his debut in Loose Ends and has also been seen in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Saint Joan. Off-Broadway, he starred in Lone Star Love, The Exonerated and The Argument. Film credits include JFK, Angels in the Outfield, Kiss the Girls, Tumbleweeds, Music of the Heart, The Day After Tomorrow and Half Nelson.

The design team for Pygmalion includes Jonathan Fensom sets & costumes, Jason Taylor lights, Gregory Clarke sound and Majella Hurley dialect coach.