Derek McLane, Kenneth Posner, et al. Join Design Team of THE BEST MAN

Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel have just announced the design team for the upcoming Broadway revival of Gore Vidal's THE BEST MAN. Tony and Drama Desk Award winning scenic designer Derek McLane (33 Variations, Anything Goes), Tony and Drama Desk Award winning lighting designer Kenneth Posner (The Coast of Utopia, Part 2 – Shipwreck) and five-time Tony Award nominated costume designer Ann Roth (The Book of Mormon) will design the play about power, ambition, political secrets, ruthlessness and the race for the presidency.

The star-studded cast will feature Candice Bergen, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, John Larroquette and Michael McKean. The play will be directed by Michael Wilson.

Gore Vidal's THE BEST MAN will begin rehearsals on Monday, January 30th, 2012 with the first preview performance on Tuesday, March 6th, 2012. An official opening is set for Sunday, April 1st, 2012 at a Shubert Theatre to be announced.

Gore Vidal's THE BEST MAN will make its return to Broadway in its first major revival since its critically acclaimed run in 2000 which received a Tony Award nomination and won a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play Revival.

Derek McLane (Scenic Design) B'way: Man and Boy, Follies, Anything Goes, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Miracle Worker, Ragtime, Million Dollar Quartet, 33 Variations, The Pajama Game (2006 Tony Award, Best Revival), Grease, The Threepenny Opera, Little Women, I Am My Own Wife (Tony Award, Best Play), Barefoot in the Park, Lestat, The Women, Present Laughter, London Assurance, Holiday, Honour, Summer and Smoke, The Three Sisters. Off-B'way: Lie of the Mind, Ruined (2009 Pulitzer Prize), 10 Million Miles, Things We Want, 2000 Years, The Scene, The Voysey Inheritance, Two Trains Running, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Macbeth (Shakespeare in the Park), Hurlyburly, Abigail's Party, Modern Orthodox, Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Credeaux Canvas, What the Butler Saw, Servicemen, East Is East, subUrbia, The Waverly Gallery, Hello Again, Saturday Night and the entire Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Awards: 1997 and 2004 Obie Awards for Sustained Excellence in Scenic Design; 2003 Michael Merritt Award in Chicago; many Drama Desk nominations; 2004, 2005, 2007 Lucille Lortel Awards; 2006 Tony Award nomination, 2009 Tony Award.

Kenneth Posner (Lighting Design) has more than 40 Broadway play and musical credits. He designs extensively Off-Broadway, in resident theatres throughout the United States as well as internationally. He is the recipient of Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Broadway (selected): Other Desert Cities, Relatively Speaking, Catch Me If You Can, The Merchant of Venice, Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Royal Family, Lend Me a Tenor, The Coast of Utopia(Shipwreck), Wicked, Tom Sawyer, The Homecoming, Legally Blonde, Hairspray, The Odd Couple, Glengarry Glen Ross, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Frogs, The Goat, Imaginary Friends, Side Man, …Charlie Brown and The Little Foxes.

Ann Roth (Costume Design) Theatre includes Hurlyburly, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Singin' in the Rain, Purlie, The Odd Couple, Waiting for Godot. Tony nominations: The Book of Mormon, Present Laughter, The Crucifer of Blood, The Royal Family, Present Laughter, The House of Blue Leaves. Films include Midnight Cowboy, Klute, The Day of the Locust (BAFTA), The Goodbye Girl, Coming Home, Hair, Working Girl, Sabrina, Silkwood, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Mambo Kings, The Birdcage,The English Patient (Oscar), The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Hours, Cold Mountain, "Angels in America," The Stepford Wives, The Village, Closer, Evening. Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award (2000).

Gore Vidal is recognized as one of our foremost authors and essayists of the last seven decades. In addition to a major sequence of novels about American history and satirical novels, Vidal has written dozens of television plays, film scripts and even three mystery novels under a pseudonym. He has also written over a hundred essays, gathered in several volumes published between 1962 and 2001. Vidal's career as an essayist culminated in 1993 when he won the National Book Award for United States: Essays, 1952-1992. His credits include the following as a Novelist: The City and the Pillar, Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood, The Golden Age, The Judgment of Paris, Messiah, Julian, Washington, D.C., Myra Breckinridge and Duluth. Essayist: United States. Memoirist: Screening History, Palimpsest. Playwright: Visit to a Small Planet, Romulus, Weekend, An Evening with Richard Nixon. Screenwriter: Suddenly, Last Summer, The Best Man, Is Paris Burning? Film actor: Gattaca, Bob Roberts. Vidal is also a Congressional Candidate both in New York and California.

Michael Wilson was represented last season by Horton Foote's critically acclaimed three part, nine hour The Orphans' Home Cycle, for which Wilson received a Drama Desk as well as the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Director of a Play. On Broadway, he has directed Foote's Dividing the Estate (Tony Award nom, Best Play), and Matthew Barber's Enchanted April (Tony Award nom, Best Play) as well as John Van Druten's Old Acquaintance for Roundabout Theatre Company. His Off-Broadway credits include the premieres of Christopher Shinn's What Didn't Happen (Playwrights Horizons), Tina Howe's Chasing Manet (Primary Stages), and Eve Ensler's Necessary Targets as well as the New York premieres of Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children (Lincoln Center Theatre) and The Day Emily Married, Jane Anderson's Defying Gravity and Tennessee Williams' The Red Devil Battery Sign. Regional work includes plays at Alley Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and Hartford Stage where he was Artistic Director from 1998 to 2011. He is currently represented by the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore starring Olympia Dukakis, and will direct the premiere of Christopher Shinn's Picked at The Vineyard Theatre this April.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos