Elizabeth Ashley to Join the Cast of August: Osage County

Elizabeth Ashley, who is currently starring as the Texas matriarch Stella in the Broadway production of Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate, will assume the role of Mattie Fae Aiken in the Broadway production of Tracy Letts' August: Osage County on February 3, 2009, alongside a number of original cast members who will return from the London production. Dividing the Estate is scheduled to end its run at the Booth Theatre on January 4.

In a recent Q&A interview with Broadway.com, Ashley noted that both Dividing the Estate and August feature casts of 13 actors. “I would love to play that mother someday, or that sister,” she said of August. “Oh yeah. It’s a brilliant play. It will be around. I may get a shot at it if I’m alive.” Mattie Fae is the outspoken sister of matriarch Violet Weston, currently being played by Estelle Parsons.

Ashley won a Tony Award for Take Her, She's Mine and was nominated for Tonys for Barefoot in the Park and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Thirty years after playing Maggie the Cat on Broadway, Ashley played Big Mama at Hartford Stage. Other Broadway credits include Enchanted April, The Best Man, The Skin of Our Teeth, Caesar and Cleopatra, Legend, Hide and Seek and Agnes of God. She has specialized in the works of Tennessee Williams at theaters around the country.

The casting of Ashley indicates that August: Osage County, which grossed $265,384 played to 48.46% of capacity at the Music Box Theatre for the week ending December 21, is taking steps to run through the winter. In addition to Parsons, the cast of August: Osage County at the time Ashley joins the show will include original cast members Kimberly Guerrero, Brian Kerwin, Madeleine Martin, Mariann Mayberry, Sally Murphy and Troy West, along with Guy Boyd, Johanna Day, Michael McGuire, Michael Milligan and Frank Wood.