Judi Dench Signs Up for John Logan Play in The West End - Bway in 2013?

Dame Judi Dench has signed up to act in the West End once more this fall in a new play by John Logan. British actor Ben Whishaw is also slated for the cast, while Michael Grandage will direct. The show will move to Broadway if it is successful enough in London, according to today's New York Post.

"London theater sources tell me Dench has signed on to play an aging Alice in Wonderland in a new play by John Logan, who won the Tony in 2010 for “Red,” his drama about painter Mark Rothko," writes Michael Riedel.

Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan won the Best Play Tony Award in 2009 for his film RED. The film, which won six Tony Awards in total, delves unflinchingly into the work and ideas of famed artist Mark Rothko as he struggles to finish a series of paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant, one of the most lucrative and notorious commissions in the history of modern art.

Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with The Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. During the next two decades, she established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In television, she achieved success during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984 and in 1992 began a continuing role in the television romantic comedy series As Time Goes By.

Her film appearances were infrequent until she was cast as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she has played in each James Bond film since but which will be killed off in the upcoming Skyfall. She received several notable film awards for her role as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown (1997), and has since been acclaimed for her work in such films as Shakespeare in Love (1998), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and Notes on a Scandal (2006), and the television production The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2001).

Read the NY Post article here.

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