Alec Baldwin to Return to Broadway in ORPHANS - Spring 2013!

Alec Baldwin will return to Broadway next spring in Lyle Kessler's Orphans directed by Daniel Sullivan, and produced by Frederick Zollo and Robert Cole. This will mark the first Broadway staging of the play. Mr. Baldwin said, "I have dreamed, for a long time, of doing this play with this director. It's an honor to work with Dan Sullivan in Lyle Kessler's Orphans."

In the play, two orphaned brothers are living in a decrepit North Philadelphia row house. Treat, the eldest, supports his damaged younger sibling by petty thievery, and makes the house a virtual prison for the seemingly simple-minded Phillip. One night he kidnaps a rich older man; Harold turns out to have his own motives and becomes the father figure the boys have always yearned for.

Alec Baldwin will play the role of Harold; the roles of Treat and Phillips are yet to be cast. It will play at a Shubert Theatre to be announced.

Alec Baldwin is a graduate of New York University (BFA-Tisch, 94) and was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from NYU in 2010. He last appeared on stage in the 2010 Guild Hall (East Hampton) production of Peter Shaffer's Equus, directed by Tony Walton. Other stage includes the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2006 production of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane, directed by Scott Ellis, Loot (Broadway-1986; Theatre World Award), Caryl Churchill's Serious Money (Broadway-1988), Prelude to a Kiss (Circle Rep.- 1990; Obie Award), A Street Car Named Desire (Broadway-1992; Tony nomination), Macbeth (NYSF-1998), The Twentieth Century (Roundabout-2004). He has also performed at The Hartman in Stamford; Williamstown and at Bay Street.

Baldwin has appeared in over forty films, including Beetle Juice, Working Girl, Miami Blues, The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross, Malice, The Juror, The Edge, Ghosts of Mississippi, State and Main, The Cat in the Hat, The Cooler (National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor, Oscar nomination), The Aviator, The Departed, and It's Complicated, among many others.

On television Baldwin currently stars with Tina Fey on NBC's "30 Rock", winner of the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. Baldwin has received six SAG Awards, three Golden Globes, the Television Critics Award and two Emmy awards as Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on the show. In 2011, Alec received his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

His company, El Dorado Pictures, has produced several projects including "Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial" for TNT television (Emmy nomination), "The Confession" for Showtime (WGA award for best adapted screenplay) and David Mamet's film, State and Main.

Alec Baldwin is also a dedicated supporter of numerous causes related to public policy and the arts. He serves on the boards of People for The American Way, The Hamptons International Film Festival and Guild Hall of East Hampton. He is an active supporter of The Radiation and Public Health Project, East Hampton Day Care Center, The Actors Fund, The Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival, The Roundabout Theatre, People for the Ethical treatment of Animals and The Water Keeper Alliance, among many others. Baldwin's book, A Promise to Ourselves (St. Martin's Press) was published in paperback in the fall of 2009.

ORPHANS premiered in 1983 at The Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles where it won the Drama-Logue Award. Following its 1985 engagement at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, the play had a successful run at New York's Westside Arts Theatre and was subsequently produced in London. A film version was also produced.

Lyle Kessler's Orphans has been an international success in almost every country in the world since its initial production at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Other plays include The Watering Place, Possession, Robbers and Unlisted. Collision will have its world premiere at the Rattlestick Theatre Co. this season. Films include Orphans, Gladiator, The Saint of Fort Washington and Touched, in which he co-starred. Mr. Kessler served as the director of the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and was moderator of the playwright/directors unit of The Actors Studio West. He is a member of The Actors Studio and The Labyrinth Theater Co. He and his wife, actress Margaret Ladd, founded the "Imagination Workshop," the longest running arts and mental health organization in the country.

Daniel Sullivan most recently directed As You Like It which is currently running at The Delacorte, and The Columnist on Broadway starring John Lithgow. He will direct Glengarry Glen Ross starring Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale later this season. For The Public Theater, Sullivan directed All's Well That Ends Well, The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino, Twelfth Night with Anne Hathaway, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stuff Happens and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Among his Broadway credits are Good People, Time Stands Still, Accent on Youth, The Homecoming, Prelude to a Kiss, Rabbit Hole, After the Night and the Music, Julius Caesar, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen, I'm Not Rappaport, Morning's at Seven, Proof, the 2000 production of A Moon for the Misbegotten, Ah, Wilderness!, The Sisters Rosensweig, Conversations with my Father, and The Heidi Chronicles. Among his Off-Broadway credits are The Night Watcher, Intimate Apparel, Far East, Spinning into Butter, Dinner with Friends, and The Substance of Fire. From 1981 to 1997, he served as artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre. Sullivan is the Swanlund Professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Frederick Zollo. New York productions include Once (Tony Award Best Musical); A Steady Rain; That Championship Season; The Farnsworth Invention; Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; 'night, Mother; King Hedley II; On Golden Pond; The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel; Death and the Maiden; Hurlyburly; Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika; Private Lives; Caroline, or Change; Frozen; The Goat; Our Country's Good; Butley; The Hairy Ape; Buried Child; Talk Radio; Marvin's Room; Oleanna; Goose and Tomtom; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll; Aven 'U Boys. London productions include Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Glengarry Glen Ross; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; Breaking the Silence; Camille; The Cryptogram. Films include Mississippi Burning; Quiz Show; The Paper; Ghosts of Mississippi; Naked in New York; The Music of Chance; Resurrecting the Champ; In the Gloaming; Lansky; and the just-completed Sweet Lorraine and Greetings from Tim Buckley. Mr. Zollo and Robert Cole are producing partners in Grey Matter Theatre Productions.

Robert Cole is currently represented on Broadway by Once (Tony Award Best Musical). He made his Broadway producing debut in 1984 with August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. He is the recipient of three Tony Awards. Other credits include That Championship Season (2011); A Steady Rain (Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman); The Crucible (Liam Neeson and Laura Linney); Death of a Salesman (Brian Dennehy); Angels in America; Horton Foote's The Young Man From Atlanta; Redwood Curtain (Lanford Wilson); Elaine Stritch: At Liberty; Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (Eric Bogosian); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Gary Sinise); Freak (John Leguizamo); and Emily Mann's Having Our Say. Mr. Cole produced the film, Tape (Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke). He and Frederick Zollo are producing partners in Grey Matter Theatre Productions.

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski