Today, December 29th, actors Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh, both making their Broadway debuts in Anton Chekhov's The Present, will appear on ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA. BWW will bring you video of the appearance as soon as it becomes available.
The
Sydney Theatre Company production of
The Present began performances on Saturday, December 17 at 7:30pm.
Andrew Upton's new adaptation of
Anton Chekhov's first play, Platonov,
The Present is directed by
John Crowley and officially opens Sunday, January 8, 2017 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 19, 2017.
THE PRESENT features the
Sydney Theatre Company cast including
Cate Blanchett (Anna) and
Richard Roxburgh (Mikhail), as well as
Anna Bamford (Maria),
Andrew Buchanan (Osip),
David Downer (Yegor),
Eamon Farren (Kirill),
Martin Jacobs (Alexei),
Brandon McClelland (Dimitri),
Jacqueline McKenzie (Sophia),
Marshall Napier (Ivan),
Susan Prior (Sasha),
Chris Ryan (Sergei) and
Toby Schmitz (Nikolai).
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 stage in
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.
Image courtesy of The Present official site
