Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh-Led THE PRESENT Will Open Next January at the Barrymore Theatre

Tickets for the critically acclaimed production of Sydney Theatre Company's The Present, Andrew Upton's new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's first play, Platonov, starring Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh, directed by John Crowley, go on sale exclusively to American Express card holders tomorrow, Wednesday, June 1. Audience Rewards members can buy tickets beginning June 8 and the on-sale date is Saturday, June 11 through Telecharge.com or by calling 212-239-6200 or visiting www.Telecharge.com.

THE PRESENT will begin previews on Broadway Saturday, December 17, 2016 and open Sunday, January 8, 2017 at the Barrymore Theatre on Broadway and will play a limited engagement through Sunday, March 19, 2017.

THE PRESENT features the Sydney Theatre Company Australian cast including Cate Blanchett (Anna) and Richard Roxburgh (Mikhail) and is directed by John Crowley. Additional casting includes Anna Bamford (Maria), Andrew Buchanan (Osip), David Downer (Yegor), Eamon Farren (Kirrill), Martin Jacobs (Alexei), Brandon McClelland (Dimitri), Jacqueline McKenzie (Sophia), Marshall Napier (Ivan), Susan Prior (Sasha), Chris Ryan (Sergei) and Toby Schmitz (Nikolai).

Set and costume design for The Present is by Alice Babidge with lighting design by Nick Schlieper. Stefan Gregory is Sound Designer and Composer.

THE PRESENT will be produced on Broadway by Stuart Thompson and Sydney Theatre Company.

Variously known as Platonov, Wild Honey, Fatherlessness and The Disinherited, Anton Chekhov's first play was not discovered until 1920, some 16 years after the playwright's death. Andrew Upton's adaptation is set post-Perestroika in the mid-1990s at an old country house where friends gather to celebrate the birthday of the independent but compromised widow Anna Petrovna (Blanchett). At the center is the acerbic and witty Platonov (Roxburgh) with his wife, his former students and friends and their partners. They may appear comfortable, but boiling away inside is a mess of unfinished, unresolved relationships, fuelled by twenty years of denial, regret and thwarted desire.

Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh are making their Broadway debuts in The Present. They previously appeared together on the New York stagein Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of Andrew Upton's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Additionally, Cate Blanchett appeared in New York in Sydney Theatre Company's productions of Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Maids.

Andrew Upton was at the creative helm of Sydney Theatre Company (STC) for the last eight years, the first five as co-Artistic Director alongside Cate Blanchett. During the Upton/Blanchett years, STC's international touring profile increased with tours of Waiting for Godot to the UK, Gross und Klein (Big and Small) to the UK, France, Austria and Germany, both A Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya to Washington and New York and The Maids to New York. A History of Everything, commissioned by STC as a co-production with Belgian theatre company Onteroend Goed, has also had seasons in Chicago and in Belgium, Holland and the UK while Long Day's Journey into Night played in Portland, Oregon.