Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Lauren Ambrose (Awake and Sing!, "Six Feet Under") and Tony® Award- winner Andrea Martin (My Favorite Year, Young Frankenstein) will star in Eugene Ionesco's EXIT THE KING, joining the previously announced Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon. Translated by Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush and directed by Neil Armfield, EXIT THE KING will begin performances Saturday, March 7, 2009 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street) and open on Thursday, March 26, 2009. This limited engagement will run for 14 weeks only, through Sunday, June 14, 2009.
Additional casting will be announced soon.
EXIT THE KING is a hilarious and poignant comedy about a megalomaniacal ruler, King Berenger (Rush) whose incompetence has left his country in near ruin. Despite the efforts of Queen Marguerite (Sarandon) and the other members of the court to convince the King he has only 90 minutes left to live, he refuses to relinquish any control.
EXIT THE KING will be produced by Stuart Thompson, Robert Fox, Howard Panter, Tulchin/Bartner, Scott Rudin and The Shubert Organization.
The design team for EXIT THE KING includes Dale Ferguson (Set & Costume), Damien Cooper (Lighting), Russell Goldsmith (Sound). John Rodgers is the Composer.
Geoffrey Rush led a critically-acclaimed production of EXIT THE KING, directed by Neil Armfield and produced by Company B and Malthouse Theatre at the CUB Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, Australia on March 28, 2007 and at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney, Australia on June 13, 2007.
Lauren Ambrose (Queen Marie). This year Ambrose performed the role of Ophelia in Hamlet for New York's Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park Festival and she previously received critical acclaim in the role of Juliet in Romeo & Juliet also for The Public Theater. In the UK, she appeared in Sam Shepard's Buried Child at the National Theater in London. Lauren received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble in the Tony® award-winning Broadway production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!. She recently completed the Warner Bros. film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's story, Where the Wild Things Are directed by Spike Jonze. She will next be seen in the starring role of the Hallmark Hall of Fame film "Loving Leah" and in HBO Films "A Dog Year" and has garnered critical praise for the independent feature Starting Out in the Evening that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Ambrose received two Emmy® nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her work in the critically acclaimed HBO series "Six Feet Under."
Andrea Martin (Juliette). Broadway: Young Frankenstein (Tony, Drama Desk Award nominations), Fiddler on the Roof, Oklahoma! (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations); Candide (Tony, Drama Desk Award nominations); My Favorite Year (Tony, Drama Desk, Theatre World Awards). Off-Broadway: The Exonerated, The Vagina Monologues; Encores!: Out of This World; NYSF: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Nude Nude Totally Nude (Drama Desk Award nomination). Regional: Huntington Theatre: The Rose Tattoo, Betty's Summer Vacation (Elliot Norton and IRNE Awards); Williamstown Theatre Festival: The Royal Family, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Matchmaker; Mark Taper Forum, L.A.: Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Stratford Festival, Canada: Private Lives. Film and television: Black Christmas, New York Minute, My Big Fat Greek Wedding (SAG Award nomination), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, All Over the Guy, Wag the Dog, Stepping Out, The TV Set, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, The Simpsons, Sesame Street (special Emmy Award), SCTV (two Emmy Awards, writing, Emmy nomination, performing).
