Audra McDonald, Kelli O'Hara, Donna Murphy, & More Join THE GILDED AGE

A truly star-studded lineup has been set for the upcoming HBO period drama "The Gilded Age" - including Audra McDonald, Donna Murphy, Kelli O'Hara, Michael Cerveris, Debra Monk, Katie Finneran, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Kristine Nielson, and John Douglas Thompson.

They join a cast that also includes Broadway regulars like Christine Baranski, Carrie Coon, Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, and Denée Benton, along with Louisa Jacobson, Taissa Farmiga, Blake Ritson, Simon Jones, Harry Richardson, Thomas Cocquerel, Jack Gilpin and star Jeanne Tripplehorn.

In this epic drama series, according to Deadline, the story begins in 1882 - introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old-money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old-money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell. In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society or forge her own path?

Baranski stars as aristocrat Agnes van Rhijn, Nixon plays her sister Ada Brook, Coon plays middle-class woman Bertha Russell, Spector plays her husband George Russell, Benton plays Peggy Scott, daughter of slaves, Jacobson plays heroine Marian Brook, Farmiga plays Gladys Russell, child of the rich, Ritson plays Oscar Van Rhijn, Agnes van Rhijn's charismatic son,

Jones plays Bannister, the Van Rhijn's butler, Richardson plays Harvard grad Larry Russell, Cocquerel plays young lawyer Tom Raikes, Gilpin plays Church, the Russell family's butler and Tripplehorn plays enigmatic figure Sylvia Chamberlain.

McDonald will play Dorothy Scott, the wife of a powerful man and the backbone of her family. After much time apart, her daughter finally pays a visit to their family home in Brooklyn, and Dorothy clings to the hope that the Scott family will heal and begin to form a new and stronger bond. However, she soon makes a discovery that throws her own beliefs into question.

O'Hara plays Aurora Fane, Agnes van Rhijn's niece, Murphy plays socialite Mrs. Astor, Cerveris plays Watson, George Russell's valet, Monk plays Armstrong, Mrs. van Rhijn's maid, Finneran plays Anne Morris the unforgiving wife of city alderman Patrick Morris, Keenan-Bolger plays Mrs. Bruce, the Russell's new housekeeper, Nielsen plays Mrs. Bauer, Mrs. Van Rhij's cook and Douglas Thompson plays Arthur Scott, a freed slave living in Brooklyn less than 20 years after the end of the Civil War.

McDonald has won more Tony Awards than any other actor in history; Murphy recently led the acclaimed Broadway revival of "Hello, Dolly!"; O'Hara was the star of the most recent revival of "The King and I"; Michael Cerveris is well-known for roles in "Fun Home" and "Evita"; and Keenan-Bolger recently played Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Photo Credit: Deadline