Mary-Louise Parker to Star in Roundabout's Hedda Gabler in '09

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) announced today that Tony® award winner Mary-Louise Parker will star in a new Broadway production of Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. The production features a new adaptation by Christopher Shinn and will be directed by Ian Rickson.

Hedda Gabler will begin previews on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 and open officially on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (

227 West 42nd Street

). This will be a limited engagement.

This production marks Tony, Emmy & Golden Globe winning actress Mary-Louise Parker's return to Broadway following her 2004 Tony-nominated performance in Craig Lucas' Reckless.

Additional cast members and the design team will be announced shortly.

Henrik Ibsen's great social drama of a caged woman in the late nineteenth century explores her tormented desire for escape and her yearning for individual and spiritual freedom.

In Hedda Gabler, the newly-wed Hedda Tesman finds herself bored with married life to her scholar husband, George Tesman.As the daughter of General Gabler, she had grown accustomed to the freedom and exciting social world of her father's home.When her rival, Mrs. Elvsted, reenters her life with Hedda's former lover, Eilert Lovberg in tow, Hedda sets out on a shocking path of destruction that affects the lives of everyone around her.

Roundabout Theatre Company has produced a number of Henrik Ibsen's plays including Hedda Gabler (1994, Broadway), An Enemy of the People (1985), The Master Builder (1983), Hedda Gabler (1981), Little Eyolf (1979), John Gabriel Borkman (1976), Rosmersholm (1974) and The Master Builder (1971).

Tickets will be available in the Fall of 2008, by phone at (212) 719-1300, online at www.roundabouttheatre.org or at the American Airlines theatre box office (227 West 42 Street).

Hedda Gabler will play Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m. with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.

Mary-Louise Parker (Mrs. Hedda Gabler).Broadway: Reckless (Tony Nomination); Proof (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, Obie, T. Schreiber, New York Magazine Awards); Prelude to a Kiss (Tony, Drama Desk Nominations; Theatre World, Clarence Derwent Awards); Bus Stop.Off-Broadway: Dead Man's Cell Phone; How I Learned to Drive (Obie, Lucille Lortel Awards; Outer Critics Circle Nomination); Communicating Doors; Four Dogs and a Bone; The Art of Success; BabylonGardens; Co-founder: Edge Theater.Film: The Spiderwick Chronicles; The Assassination of Jesse James; Fried Green Tomatoes; Grand Canyon; Boys on the Side; The Client; Naked in New York; Bullets Over Broadway; Longtime Companion; Pipe Dream; Red Dragon; Romance and Cigarettes; Saved!; The Five Senses (Genie Nomination); and others.TV: Golden Globe, SAG, and two-time Emmy Nominee for "Weeds" for which she won a Golden Globe, Satellite Award; "Angels in America" (Golden Globe, Emmy Awards, SAG Nomination); "Robber Bride" (Emmy Nomination; Gemini Award); "The West Wing" (Emmy Nomination); "Sugartime"; " A Place for Annie"; "Saint Maybe" and others.Her work is archived at BostonUniversity.

Henrik Isben (Playwright). (1828 -1906) In addition to Hedda Gabler, his plays include A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Lady from the Sea, Peer Gynt, Pillars of Society, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken.

Christopher Shinn (Adaptation) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and lives in New York. His plays have been premiered by the

Royal Court, Lincoln

Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, the Vineyard Theatre, South Coast Rep, and Soho Theatre, and later seen around the world. He is a winner of an OBIE in Playwriting, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting. He has received grants from the NEA/TCG Residency Program and the Peter S. Reed Foundation, and he is recipient of the Robert S. Chesley Award. He teaches playwriting at the NewSchool for Drama.

Ian Rickson (Director) was Artistic Director at the Royal Court from 1998 to 2006, during which time he directed The Seagull (coming to Broadway in September 2008), Krapp's Last Tape, The Winterling, Alice Trilogy, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, Fallout, The Night Heron, Boy Gets Girl, Mouth to Mouth (also in the West End), Dublin Carol, The Weir (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, in the West End and on Broadway), The Lights, Pale Horse and Mojo (also at the Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago), Ashes & Sand, Some Voices, Killers and Wildfire.Other theatre includes The Day I Stood Still at The National Theatre.

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.

Roundabout Theatre Company currently produces at three permanent homes each of which is designed specifically to enhance the needs of the Roundabout's mission. Off-Broadway, the Harold and MiriamSteinbergCenter for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, with its simple sophisticated design is perfectly suited to showcasing new plays. The grandeur of its Broadway home on

42nd Street

, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics.Roundabout's Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. Together these three distinctive venues serve to enhance the work on each of its stages.

 

Roundabout productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts; and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. American Express is the 2008-2009 season sponsor of the Roundabout Theatre Company.American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company.The Westin New York is the official hotel of Roundabout Theatre Company.

Currently playing at Roundabout Theatre Company is Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo, directed by Walter Bobbie at the Laura Pels Theatre. Roundabout's sold out production of The 39 Steps transferred to the Cort Theatre on April 29th, 2008.

Roundabout Theatre Company's upcoming 2008-2009 season will also include Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, starring Frank Langella, directed by Doug Hughes; Rodgers & Hart's Pal Joey, starring Stockard Channing, Christian Hoff & Martha Plimpton, directed by Joe Mantello; David Rabe's Streamers, directed by Scott Ellis, Lisa Loomer's Distracted featuring Cynthia Nixon, directed by Mark Brokaw; Bob Fosse's Dancin'; and Steven Levenson's The Language of Trees, directed by Alex Timbers.

Roundabout Theatre Company's critically acclaimed Broadway production of Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men is currently booking the third year of its multi-award winning tour. Twelve Angry Men is directed by Tony-nominated director Scott Ellis (Curtains).

For more information visit www.roundabouttheatre.org

Photo by Diego Uchitel