Tony Award winners Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons will return to Broadway to star together in the world premiere of Impressionism, a new American play by Michael Jacobs. The production, which will be directed by Tony Award-winner Jack O'Brien, will play the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, reports The New York Times. Design team and additional casting will be announced at a later date.
Previews are set to begin on February 28th, with opening night scheduled for March 12th, 2009.
The production will mark Ms. Allen's first return to Broadway since The Heidi Chronicles in 1989, and Mr. Irons' first time on Broadway since The Real Thing in 1984.
Impressionism will be produced by Ostar Productions.
Impressionism is the story of a world traveling photojournalist and a New York gallery owner who discover each other and also that there might be an art to repairing broken lives.
Jeremy Irons made his Broadway debut in 1984 in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing opposite Glenn Close, winning a Tony Award and Drama League Award for Best Actor in a Play. Other theater includes the Bristol Old Vic and Godspell as John the Baptist. The Royal Shakespeare Company followed, along with stage performances in New York City Opera production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music as Frederik, directed by Scott Ellis and Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Sándor Márai's novel, Embers at the Duke of Yorks theatre in 2006 and this year Irons' appears in Howard Brenton's Never So Good at the National in the role of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In Film, Irons won the New York Critics Best Actor Award in 1988 for the film Dead Ringers and the Oscar for Best Actor in 1990 for Reversal of Fortune. Other films include Nijinsky, Moonlighting, Betrayal, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Mission, Kafka, Damage, The House of the Spirits, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Stealing Beauty, Lolita, The Man in the Iron Mask, Callas Forever, Being Julia, Merchant of Venice, Casanova, Kingdom of Heaven and Eragon. Irons' was the voice of Scar in The Lion King. Television includes "Love for Lydia," "Langrishe, Go Down," "Brideshead Revisited," for which he received an Emmy nomination and Golden Globe Award and "Elizabeth I," for which he received Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Joan Allen won a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in Lanford Wilson's Burn This in 1988 and received a Tony Award nomination the following year for Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in The Contender, The Crucible and Nixon. Other major film roles include Compromising Positions, Manhunter, Peggy Sue Got Married, All My Sons, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, In Country, Ethan Fromme, Searching for Bobby Fischer, the Ice Storm, Face/Off, Pleasantville, When the Sky Falls, The Mists of Avalon, The Notebook, The Bourne Supremacy, Yes, The Upside of Anger, Bonneville and The Bourne Ultimatum and the upcoming Death Race 2000, and Hachiko: A Dog's Story.
Michael Jacobs has written for Broadway and television. His play, Cheaters, was produced on Broadway in 1978 at the Biltmore Theatre and
his next play, Getting Along Famously, was produced Off-Broadway at the Hudson Guild Theatre. His fifteen television series have won the Emmy, People's Choice, Parent's Choice and Environmental Media Awards, among others. He produced the movie Quiz Show, which won the NY Film Critics' Circle Award and was nominated for an Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Picture in 1994.
Jack O'Brien won Tony Awards for his direction of The Coast of Utopia, Henry IV, and Hairspray. His other work on Broadway includes Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Tony nomination), Imaginary Friends, The Invention of Love (Tony nomination), The Full Monty (Tony nomination), More to Love, Getting Away With Murder, Pride's Crossing, The Little Foxes, Hapgood, Damn Yankees, Two Shakespearean Actors (Tony nomination), Porgy and Bess (Tony nomination); St. Louis Woman at Encores; The Most Happy Fella. He directed Il Trittico for the Metropolitan Opera. . As Artistic Director Emeritus of The Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, he led the organization from 1982 to 2007, where his productions include Twelfth Night, The Full Monty, The Seagull, The Magic Fire, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Henry IV, Much Ado About Nothing, Oleanna, Damn Yankees, King Lear, Ghosts, Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, Breaking Legs and Emily. TV: six movies for PBS's "American Playhouse."
