LA BETE Starring Rylance, Pierce & Lumley to Open on Broadway Oct. 14
By: Robert Diamond May. 18, 2010
The first major revival of David Hirson's Olivier Award-winning comedy LA BÊTE starring Tony and Olivier Award winner Mark Rylance, Tony and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce, and BAFTA Award winner (and star of "Absolutely Fabulous") Joanna Lumley will open on Broadway October 14, 2010 at a Shubert Theatre to be announced. This new production, helmed by acclaimed director Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage, Boeing-Boeing, The Norman Conquests), will begin previews September 23, 2010, following a limited summer engagement at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End from June 26-September 4, 2010 with opening night set for July 7.
Joining Rylance, Pierce, and Lumley in both London and New York are Stephen Ouimette, Lisa Joyce, Greta Lee, Robert Lonsdale, Michael Milligan, Liza Sadovy, Sally Wingert, Deanne Lorette, and Steve Routman.
The Independent is calling Mark Rylance "our greatest living actor" for his award-winning turns in Boeing-Boeing (Tony Award), Much Ado About Nothing (Olivier Award), and most recently, Jerusalem, for which he won the Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Best Actor awards for his performance. David Hyde Pierce won four Emmy Awards for the role of ‘Niles' on TV's "Frasier" and the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for Broadway's Curtains. Acclaimed comedienne and actress Joanna Lumley is best known for playing ‘Patsy Stone' in the award-winning BBC television series, "Absolutely Fabulous" for which she won two BAFTA TV awards. Lumley was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1995.
American playwright David Hirson's rollicking 1991 play, LA BÊTE, is a comic tour de force about Elomire (Pierce), a high-minded classical dramatist who loves only the theater, and Valere (Rylance), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself. When the fickle princess (Lumley) decides she's grown weary of Elomire's royal theatre troupe, he and Valere are left fighting for survival as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown for the ages.
Tickets go on sale exclusively to American Express cardholders Wednesday, May 19 and to the general public beginning Saturday, May 29. Tickets range from $126.50 - $76.50 and are available at www.telecharge.com and via phone at 212-239-6200.
LA BÊTE will be produced in London and New York by Scott Landis & Sonia Friedman Productions, Roger Berlind, Robert G. Bartner/Norman Tulchin, Bob Boyett/Tim Levy, Roy Furman, Max Cooper, Philip Morgaman/Frankie J. Grande, and Bud Martin.
The show will be designed by Mark Thompson, with lighting by Hugh Vanstone, music by Claire van Kampen, and sound by Simon Baker.
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