Meet the Cast of ARCADIA Day 3: Raul Esparza
By: Charlie Piane Feb. 16, 2011
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Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA is coming to Broadway for a limited engagement this spring, following a sold out run in London where it was heralded as a "dazzling masterpiece, a glimpse of theatrical heaven" (The Daily Telegraph) and "the greatest play of its time" (The Independent).
Directed by five-time Tony Award® nominee David Leveaux, ARCADIA is "Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy" (The New York Times) - a witty masterpiece of misunderstanding and quest for knowledge, resonating across centuries.
April 1809, an elegant English country estate... a gifted pupil, proposes a startling theory well beyond her comprehension. All around her, the adults, including her tutor, are preoccupied with secret desires, illicit passions and professional rivalries.
Two hundred years later, two academic adversaries are piecing together puzzling clues, curiously recalling those events of 1809 in their quest for an increasingly elusive truth.
ARCADIA features an exquisite cast including Margaret Colin, Billy Crudup, Raúl Esparza, Glenn Fleshler, Grace Gummer, Edward James Hyland, Byron Jennings, Bel Powley, Tom Riley, Noah Robbins, David Turner and Lia Williams. Crudup, who won a Tony Award for his performance in Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, made his Broadway debut in the 1995 production of ARCADIA. Esparza has received four Tony Award nominations for starring roles on Broadway in Speed-the-Plow (2009), The Homecoming (2008), Company (2007) and Taboo (2004). Lia Williams made her Broadway debut in David Hare's Skylight for which she received a Tony Award nomination and Olivier Award nomination.
Tom Stoppard, one of the most celebrated and prolific playwrights of modern day, has been represented on Broadway with seventeen different productions to date including Rock 'n' Roll, Jumpers, The Real Thing, Travesties, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Coast of Utopia, which received the most Tony Awards of any play on Broadway. David Leveaux's previous collaborations with Stoppard include the Tony Award-winning revival of The Real Thing and the Tony-nominated revival of Jumpers, receiving Tony Award nominations for his direction of both.
| Name: Valentine Coverly Background: A graduate student of mathematics, Valentine is Chloe Coverly's older brother. After poring over several old documents, he works out Thomasina's diagram and reluctantly shares Thomasina's genius with Hannah Jarvis.Portrayed by: Raúl Esparza: Since making his Broadway debut in the revival of The Rocky Horror Show (Theatre World Award), Raúl Esparza has taken the theater world by storm. He has become only the second actor to receive Tony nominations in all four eligible acting categories. His credits include Speed-the-Plow (Tony, Drama Desk nominations, Best Actor in a Play), The Homecoming (Tony nomination, Best Featured Actor in a Play), Company (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award, Best Actor in a Musical), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Taboo (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award, Best Featured Actor in a Musical) and Cabaret. He appeared in Shakespeare in the Park’s Twelfth Night and he has appeared Off-Broadway in The Normal Heart, Comedians and tick, tick… BOOM!, which earned him an Obie Award. In 2005, he received the HOLA José Ferer Acting Award, and was a participant in the 2006 and 2010 Sundance Theatre Lab. Outside New York, Esparza portrayed ‘Che’ in the National tour of Evita, and appeared in two musicals at the 2002 Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration: Sunday in the Park with George and Merrily We Roll Along. His regional theater credits include Leap of Faith at the Center Theatre Group (LA); Company at the Cincinnati Playhouse; Slaughterhouse-Five and Fur at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago; and Arcadia and What the Butler Saw at the Meadow Brook Theatre in Rochester, MI. Esparza made his film debut in Sidney Lumet’s 2006 Find Me Guilty. Other films include Wes Craven’s My Soul to Take and GWB. He has also appeared on TV in “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” and on ABC television series “Pushing Daisies” (recurring). Esparza’s book recording includes Stephen King’s best-selling book Under the Dome. His website is www.raulesparza.com. |
ARCADIA begins previews February 26. The show's opening is set for March 17.
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