James Earl Jones to Star in Scott Ellis-Helmed YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU on Broadway; Opens 9/28

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman are currently represented in real life at Lincoln Center in Act One, but next year their most popular and acclaimed workYou Can't Take It with You, will return to Broadway for the first time in more than 30 years. The production will star Tony Award and Outer Critics Circle Winner James Earl Jones (Gore Vidal's The Best Man, Fences, The Great White Hope,) and will be directed by six-time Tony Award-nominee and Drama Desk Award winner Scott Ellis (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Twelve Angry Men, 1776). The production will begin previews in August of 2014 for an opening on September 28, 2014 at a Shubert Theatre to be announced.

You Can't Take It with You will be produced by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Steve Traxler, Jessica Genick and Will Trice.

You Can't Take It with You is about the Sycamores and the Kirbys - two completely different families whose worlds collide when their children become engaged. The Sycamore family may seem like the mad ones with their galaxy of unique and zany characters, but it is not long before we realize that if they are mad, the rest of the world is madder.

The original production of the play opened at the Booth Theater on December 14, 1936, and played for 837 performances. The play won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

JAMES EARL JONES made his Broadway debut in 1957 and has won Tony Awards for the Broadway productions of The Great White Hope and Fences; Tony nominations for Gore Vidal's The Best Man and On Golden Pond; Drama Desk Awards for Othello, Les Blancs, Hamlet, The Cherry Orchard andFences; Obie Awards for Clandestine on the Morning Line, The Apple, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, and Baal; a Theatre World Award for Moon on a Rainbow Shawl; the Los Angeles Critics Circle Award for Fences; and an Olivier Award nomination for his portrayal of Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roofin London. Additional theater credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway, Paul Robeson, The Iceman Cometh, Of Mice and Men, and most recently Broadway, London, and Australian productions of Driving Miss Daisy. Jones is also an award-winning film and television actor and was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

SCOTT ELLIS (Director). Broadway: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Tony nom.), Harvey, Curtains (Tony nom.), The Little Dog Laughed (Drama League nom.), Twelve Angry Men (Tony, DD noms., OCC, DD awards, Best Revival), The Man Who Had All the Luck, The Boys From Syracuse, The Rainmaker,1776 (DD, Tony nom., Best Director), She Loves Me (Tony nom.; DD, OCC awards), Picnic (OCC nom.), Company, A Month in the Country, Steel Pier(Tony nom.; DD, OCC awards). London: She Loves Me (Olivier Award). Off-Broadway: Gruesome Playground Injuries, The Understudy, Streamers; GoodBoys and True; Entertaining Mr. Sloane; The Waverly Gallery; The Dog Problem; That Championship Season; Dark Rapture; And the World Goes 'Round: The Songs of Kander and Ebb (DD, OCC awards); and Flora, the Red Menace (DD nom). NYC Opera: 110 in the Shade, A Little Night Music (also L.A. Opera). TV: "Weeds" (Executive Producer), "30 Rock" (Emmy nom., Best Director), "Modern Family," "Two Broke Girls," "Frasier," "The Good Wife," "Hung," "The Closer." Mr. Ellis is the Associate Artistic Director of Roundabout Theatre Company.

KAUFMAN & HART. The Kaufman and Hart collaboration lasted from 1930 to 1940. The first play they collaborated on was Once in a Lifetime, one of the greatest success of its time. Over the next ten years they wrote seven other shows together: Merrily We Roll Along (1934), You Can't Take It with You (1936), I'd Rather Be Right (1937), The Fabulous Invalid (1938), The American Way (1939), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), and George Washington Slept Here (1940).

Solo, Hart wrote Lady in the Dark, Winged Victory, Christopher Blake, Light Up the Sky, and The Climate of Eden. In addition, he wrote many screenplays that were produced in Hollywood, including the 1954 version of A Star Is Born. His most notable screenplay was Gentleman's Agreement which won an Academy Award. Before and after working with Hart, Kaufman wrote such hits as The Butter and Egg Man, The Coconuts, and Strike Up the Band (all as a solo playwright); The Royal Family and Dinner at Eight (with Edna Ferber);The Dark Tower (with Alexander Woollcott); Animal Crackers (with Morris Ryskind); Park Avenue (with Nunnally Johnson); and The Solid Gold Cadillac (with Howard Teichman).

Photo Credit: Walter McBride