TV Preview: LA BETE!

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The first major revival of David Hirson's Olivier Award-winning comedy LA BÊTE starring Tony and Olivier Award winner Mark Rylance, Tony and Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce, and BAFTA Award winner (and star of "Absolutely Fabulous") Joanna Lumley will play Broadway's Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th Street) beginning September 23, 2010. This new production, helmed by acclaimed Tony Award-winning director Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage, Boeing-Boeing, The Norman Conquests), will officially open October 14, 2010. This immediately follows a critically-acclaimed limited summer engagement at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End from June 26-September 4, 2010.

A popular street performer and a classical writer square off in American playwright David Hirson's thoughtful comedy LA BÊTE. The Olivier Award-winning Best Play, written in 1990, pits high-brow against low-brow in 17th Century France when the two artists vie for a royal endorsement. In our age of sensationalism and reality television, what begins as a rollicking comedy soon challenges audiences to decide for themselves: can culture be populist?

LA BÊTE is designed by Mark Thompson, with lighting by Hugh Vanstone, music by Claire van Kampen, and sound by Simon Baker.