Susan Louise O'Connor Completes Broadway Cast of BLITHE SPIRIT

The producers of the upcoming Broadway revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit are pleased to welcome Susan Louise O'Connor in the role of "Edith"

Performances are scheduled to begin on Thursday, February 26, 2009 at The Shubert Theatre (225 West 44th Street).

Making her Broadway debut, SUSAN LOUISE O'CONNOR has appeared Off-Broadway in What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends with the Four Chairs Theatre, Apostasy & Marion Bridge at Urban Stages, Walk Two Moons at the Lucille Lortel, Never Swim Alone with GO Productions, See Bob Run at the Rattlestick Theatre, and St. Scarlet with the Women's Expressive Theatre. Her regional credits include: A Sleeping Country (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), What the Butler Saw (Huntington Theatre), Wonder of the World (Barrington Stage) & Indoor/Outdoor (Portland Stage). She has appeared on film in Flying Scissors, Acts of Worship, The Day My Towers Fell, The Question, The Moment & Parallel Passage. Television: Law & Order: C.I.

Blithe Spirit will be produced by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Steve Traxler, Bat Barry Productions, Jennifer Costello/Broadway Across America, Ken Davenport, Scott Delman, Jamie DeRoy/Alan D. Marks, Wendy Federman, Michael Filerman, Jeffrey Finn/Arlene Scanlan, Ronald Frankel, Barbara and Buddy Freitag, JK Productions, Kathleen Johnson, Patty Ann McKinnon, and Terry Schnuck.

Blithe Spirit, one of Noel Coward's most popular comedies, was first seen on Broadway, in 1941, the same year it was produced in London where it set British box office records and was the longest running comedy (1997 performances) until it was eventually surpassed by Boeing-Boeing in the 1970's. The original Broadway production played nearly two years and co-starred Leonora Corbett, Mildred Natwick, Clifton Webb and Peggy Wood. It was last seen on Broadway in an all-star production in 1987 with Richard Chamberlain, Blythe Danner, Judith Ivey, and Geraldine Page, in her final Broadway appearance.

Coward, in his autobiography, claimed he wrote the play in five days during a holiday. Only two lines of dialogue were removed before its first production in London.

 

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.