Full Cast Announced for Roundabout's Naked Girl on Appian Way

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) is thrilled to announce the cast for the New York premiere of Tony Award® winner Richard Greenberg's new comedy A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, directed by Tony Award® winner Doug Hughes at the American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42nd Street).

The cast includes Jill Clayburgh (Bess), Richard Thomas (Jeffrey), Matthew Morrison (Thad), Susan Kelechi Watson (Juliet), James Yaegashi (Bill), Leslie Ayvazian (Elaine) and Ann Guilbert (Sadie).

A Naked Girl on the Appian Way will begin previews Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 and opens officially on Thursday, October 6th, 2005. This is a limited engagement through December 4th, 2005.

The design team for A Naked Girl on the Appian Way includes John Lee Beatty (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lights) and David Van Tieghem (sound).

Richard Greenberg returns to Broadway with one of his funniest, most imaginative plays yet. Bess is a successful cookbook author and her husband Jeffrey is a distracted genius whose lives are upended when their two children return from a year of European travel and reveal surprising news that stretches the family beyond their breaking point.

A Naked Girl on the Appian Way is Richard Greenberg's third play at the Roundabout Theatre Company. His previous plays include Hurrah At Last (1999) and The Dazzle (2002), which received an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play and a Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Play. Richard Greenberg also earned the 2003 Best Play Tony© Award for Take Me Out and earned two Pulitzer Prize nominations for his play Take Me Out (2003) and Three Days of Rain (1998).

Doug Hughes returns to the Roundabout Theatre Company where he directed Jon Robin Baitz's The Paris Letter and Stephen Belber's McReele, both at the Laura Pels Theatre. He will also direct Roundabout's new production of A Touch of the Poet starring Gabriel Byrne at Studio 54 beginning November 11th, 2005. He earned the 2005 Tony©, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Direction of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. He also earned the 2004 Tony©, Outer Critics Circle & Lucille Lortel nominations for his direction of Bryony Lavery's Frozen.

A Naked Girl on the Appian Way was commissioned and first produced by South Coast Repertory.

TICKET INFORMATION:

Tickets are available by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300, online at www.roundabouttheatre.org or at the American Airlines box office (227 West 42nd St.). A Naked Girl on the Appian Way will play Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:00PM with a Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinee at 2:00PM. PLEASE NOTE the following early-to-bed series: A Naked Girl on the Appian Way will play early curtains at 7:00 PM from October 18th – October 28th. Tickets range from $31.25 – 81.25

Biographies:

Jill Clayburgh (Bess Lapin) has been nominated for two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, and an Emmy Award for roles in An Unmarried Woman, Starting Over, First Monday in October, La Luna, and "Hustling". She has starred in 25 feature films, including I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can, Silver Streak, Semi Tough and Never Again. Television audiences know her from numerous roles in series and movies including "Nip/Tuck", "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal". On Broadway, she appeared in a revival of Noel Coward's Design for Living, the original production of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, and the Tony Award-winning musicals Pippin and The Rothschilds. Off-Broadway she recently originated the role of "Sunny" in The Exonerated. She will be seen in the upcoming film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors scheduled for release in 2006. Following the limited engagement of A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, she will play "Mrs. Banks" in the upcoming Broadway revival of Barefoot in the Park.

Richard Thomas (Jeffrey Lapin). Mr. Thomas' Broadway career began in 1958 in Sunrise at Campobello. Other New York appearances include As You Like It (Delacorte), Democracy, Fifth of July, The Seagull, The Front Page, Tiny Alice, The Playroom and Terrence McNally's The Stendhal Syndrome. He has performed leading classical roles for directors such as Mark Lamos, Peter Sellars, Robert Wilson, Michael Kahn and Peter Hall; appeared in many films; and starred in more than 40 movies for television. His series include "It's a Miracle," "Just Cause" and "The Waltons," for which he won the Emmy in 1972. He lives in New York with his wife, Georgiana, and their son, Montana.

Matthew Morrison (Thad Lapin). LCT: The Light in the Piazza (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations). Broadway: original Link Larkin in Hairspray (Outer Critics Circle nomination), Footloose, The Rocky Horror Show. National tours: Footloose, Hairspray (L.A.). Film: Marci X, Primary Colors, Simply Funk. TV: musical guest Fresh Step on "The David Letterman Show," "Thank God It's Monday" (pilot); also guest spots on "Sex and the City," "The Journey of Allen Strange" and "Hack"; plus the upcoming ABC movie "Once Upon a Mattress" (with Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman). www.mattmorrison.net.

Susan Kelechi Watson (Juliet Lapin). Theatre: The Story (Public), Playboy of the West Indies, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Henry IV, part 1 and La Casa Nova (all at NYU Graduate Acting Program). TV: "Third Watch" (recurring), "Law & Order: Trial by Jury", "As the World Turns", "All My Children", "The Jury", Law & Order" and "Hack". Graduate of New York University Graduate Acting Program (MFA).

James Yaegashi (Bill Lapin). Stage: Richard III (Public), Take Me Out (original Donmar Warehouse & Public cast), A Few Stout Individuals (Signature), Twelfth Night and Comedy of Errors (both at Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Stories of the Children of War (River Arts Rep.), Macbeth (Theatre for a New Audience) and more. TV: "One Life to Live". Film: 13 Conversations About One Thing, Lisa Picard is Famous, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Job, Spin the Bottle and Columbus Park. MFA in Acting and Directing, University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Leslie Ayvazian (Elaine). Broadway: Lost In Yonkers with RoseMary Harris, Lips Together, Teeth Apart with Nathan Lane and many plays by several contemporary playwrights including Nicky Silver and Richard Greenberg. Leslie has performed in productions at the McCarter Theatre, The Vineyard Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Mark Taper Forum and Manhattan Class Company. Leslie is the author of Nine Armenians, which premiered at Seattle's Intiman Theatre and went on to productions at MTC and Mark Taper Forum. The play won the John Gassner Outer Critics' Award for Best New Play, the Roger L. Stevens Award, the Anahid Literary Award, a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Arts, was recognized with a Susan Smith Blackburn International Play Award and was selected for the Anthology of Best Plays by Women (1996). Leslie has written numerous plays that have been produced by MCC, Vineyard Theatre, Long Wharf and more. TV: "Law and Order", "Law and Order: SVU" (recurring) and the television movies The Sunset Gang and Flour Babies. Film: Working Girl, Regarding Henry and Alice. Leslie is currently an adjunct professor at the graduate school of Columbia University.

Ann Guilbert (Sadie). Broadway: The Billy Barnes Revue (original cast, London & LA cast). Regional: Growing Gracefully (Tiffany Theater), The Immigrant (Mark Taper), Life Times Ten (Theater West), many productions at Denver Center Theater Company, Arena Stage (DC) and Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts (CA). TV includes: "Sienfeld", "The Nanny", "Picket Fences", "Home Improvement", "The Fanelli Boys", "Empty Nest" and more. Film: Grumpier Old Men, A Guide for the Married Man, The Man From the Diner's Club, How Sweet It Is and Viva Max.

Richard Greenberg (Playwright) is the author of Take Me Out (Drama Desk Award; NY Drama Critics Circle Award; Outer Critics Circle Award; Lucille Lortel Award; Tony Award for Best Play), which received an acclaimed production on Broadway after successful runs at The Donmar on London's West End and The Public Theater in New York City. Other works include The Violet Hour, The Dazzle (Outer Critics Circle Award: John Gassner, Lucille Lortel nominations), Everett Beekin, Three Days of Rain (L.A. Drama Critics Award; Pulitzer finalist; Olivier, Drama Desk, Hull-Warriner nominations), Hurrah At Last, Night and Her Stars, The American Plan, Life Under Water, and The Author's Voice, among many other plays. His adaptation of Strindberg's Dance of Death was seen on Broadway starring Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren, and David Straithairn. Mr. Greenberg received the Oppenheimer Award for a new playwright as well as the first PEN/Laura Pels Award for a playwright in mid-career. He is an associate artist at South Coast Repertory and a member of Ensemble Studio Theater.

Doug Hughes (Director) is returning to The Roundabout where he recently directed Jon Robin Baitz' The Paris Letter and Stephen Belber's McReele. His Manhattan Theatre Club production of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt is currently running on Broadway at the Walter Kerr. For his work on Doubt, he won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. He is the Resident Director at MCC Theater, where he has directed Last Easter, Scattergood, Frozen, Anadrako and The Grey Zone (Obie Award). Recent work in New York includes Engaged at Theatre for a New Audience; Flesh and Blood, The Beard of Avon and A Question of Mercy, all at NYTW; Othello (with Keith David and Liev Schreiber) at the Public; John Guare's Lake Hollywood at Signature and An Experiment with An Air Pump for MTC. For his work on Frozen, Hughes received Tony Award, Outer Critics Circle and Lortel nominations.

Roundabout Theatre Company is one of the country's leading not-for-profit theatres. The company contributes invaluably to New York's cultural life by staging the highest quality revivals of classic plays and musicals as well as new plays by established writers. Roundabout consistently partners great artists with great works to bring a fresh and exciting interpretation that makes each production relevant and important to today's audiences.

The 2005-2006 season marks the Roundabout Theatre Company's 40th anniversary.

The company's 2005-2006 season, under the continuing leadership of Artistic Director Todd Haimes, is dedicated to the community of artists and loyal audience members who have made Roundabout one of New York's most popular not-for profit cultural institutions.

Roundabout Theatre Company productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; New York State Council on the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. The Westin Hotel is the official hotel of the Roundabout Theatre Company.

www.roundabouttheatre.org