Emmy Winner Holland Taylor Returns In Her Critically Acclaimed Play ANN Exclusively On BroadwayHD

BroadwayHD, the premier streaming service for live theater productions, announces today that it will exclusively stream ANN, the critically acclaimed play written and performed by Emmy Award winning actress Holland Taylor and directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein, starting Thursday, June 14, 2018.

Hailed by USA Today as "Funny & Tender. A Deeply Affectionate, Clever Tribute," ANN is an intimate, no-holds-barred portrait of Ann Richards, the legendary Governor of Texas, whose heroic and humane voice is strikingly relevant today. This inspiring and hilarious play brings us face to face with a complex, colorful and captivating character bigger than the state from which she hailed. Written and performed by Emmy Award winner Taylor ("Two and a Half Men"), who the New York Times called a "fiery dynamo", ANN takes a revealing look at the passionate woman who lifted the lives of all she touched, followers, friends, and family.

For her performance in ANN, Taylor received the 2013 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and was nominated for a 2013 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance.

The debut on BroadwayHD will be supported by a private celebration event at Lincoln Center hosted by Taylor and Ann Richards' daughter, former CEO of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards, with close friends and political and theatre luminaries.

ANN began as an unexpected mission-quest for Taylor to understand about the essential power of this housewife, mother, grandmother, leader, and iconic patriot who affected so many people so deeply. Researching and writing the play became a four-year journey for Taylor, crisscrossing the country, watching countless hours of video coverage, and poring over reams of Richards' personal and public papers at the University of Texas. Her greatest resources were the closest colleagues of the Governor as well as her family, friends, and staff - with many of whom Taylor shares friendships today.

ANN has scenic design by Michael Fagin, costume design by Julie Weiss, lighting design by Matthew Richards, sound design by Ken Huncovsky, projection design by Zachary Borovay, and wig design by Paul Huntley.

ANN played to sold-out audiences at Galveston's Grand 1894 Opera House in the summer of 2010, and continued its development at San Antonio's Empire Theatre in the fall of 2010, and Austin's Paramount Theatre in the spring of 2011. In the fall of 2011 the new play opened to critical acclaim at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, and went on to have a smash hit run at Washington DC's Kennedy Center in winter of 2011-2012, followed by a critically acclaimed production at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater in 2013.

The New Yorker has called Holland Taylor "the first vaudeville Gentile we ever saw." Her New York stage performances include Bess in Breakfast with Les and Bess, the original productions of Butley, opposite Alan Bates, and A.R. Gurney's The Cocktail Hour. She still holds her head high after taking over for Eve Arden, and one week later, opening the historic flop, Moose Murders.

Taylor took Broadway by storm as writer and star of ANN, a one-woman show about the inspiring Texas Governor Ann Richards, which resulted in rave reviews, a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress, Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, and the Outer Circle Critics award for Best Solo Performance. The show also played the Zach Theatre in Austin, Texas, where Holland reprised and filmed the full Lincoln Center Theater production, bringing ANN home to Texas.

Following her Broadway run in ANN, Taylor appeared in a movie titled Kepler's Dream, an inspiring film for a young audience, and in Pulitzer prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire's dark comedy Ripcord at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Taylor was last seen on Broadway in the star-studded revival of The Front Page, opposite Nathan Lane, John Slattery, Robert Morse, John Goodman and other luminaries. Over the years in Los Angeles, she has performed on stage in Kindertransport, and played opposite Christopher Lloyd in Yasmina Reza's The Unexpected Man at the Geffen. She has given narrations for the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Essa-Pekka Salonen and John Adams, and narrated the Harry Potter Suite for John Williams at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Taylor has worked extensively in film and television, appearing in Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, To Die For, Next Stop Wonderland, One Fine Day, George of the Jungle, The Truman Show, Happy Accidents, Spy Kids (2 & 3), Keeping the Faith, Legally Blonde, and Baby Mama, with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. On television, Holland has been nominated for the Emmy seven times, winning Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for the sexy, brilliant Judge Roberta Kittlesonon The Practice. Among her numerous series starring roles: The Powers that Be, Norman Lear's short-lived but highly acclaimed political satire, Bosom Buddies, with Tom Hanks, and, of course, the juggernaut, Two and a Half Men, with her dear boys, Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and number 3 son, Ashton Kutcher.

Her current project is Mr. Mercedes, a limited TV series for Audience Network, starring the great Irish actor Brenden Gleeson. It is written by Executive Producer David Kelley, run by director Jack Bender, and based on a trilogy of novels by Stephen King.

BroadwayHD, founded in 2015 by Tony Award winning producers Bonnie Comley and Stewart F. Lane, is the only online streaming service of its kind, offering "Broadway Your Way" through an unprecedented in-hand theatre experience that delivers premium live productions to theatre fans globally. In addition to exclusive live streamed content of the world's best productions, BroadwayHD offers subscribers unlimited on-demand access to a library of more than 200 theatre productions from the comfort and convenience of their own homes - or wherever streaming is possible. It's the Broadway you know and love, curated from the stage to your screen.