Michael Shannon & Paul Rudd Commit to GRACE on Broadway This Fall

Producers Debbie Bisno, Fox Theatricals and Paula Wagner announced today the Broadway Premiere of GRACE, the acclaimed American play by Award-winning writer Craig Wright (Mistakes Were Made, Recent Tragic Events, Lady; "Six Feet Under").  Grace will premiere in a strictly limited engagement beginning on Friday, September 14, 2012 at a Shubert Theater to be announced. Dexter Bullard (Tracy Letts' BUG) will direct the production, which will feature an all-star cast that includes Paul Rudd and Academy Award® nominee Michael Shannon, with Kate Arrington and seven-time Emmy Award®-winner Edward Asner, who returns to Broadway for the first time in nearly 25 years. Opening Night is set for Thursday, October 4, 2012.

A thrilling cast combines with one of theater's truly original voices, in this enthralling Broadway premiere that asks: are we in control of our lives or is there something else at work? With a grippingly innovative dramatic structure, Grace follows a wide-eyed young couple (Rudd & Arrington) as they start a new life in sunny, promise-filled Florida, with big plans to open a chain of Gospel motels. An agitated neighbor (Shannon) and a caustic exterminator (Asner) complete the eclectic foursome as destinies collide in this intensely entertaining and suspenseful journey to The Edge of your seat.

Grace first premiered to critical acclaim at The Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC in 2004, and was subsequently seen in a celebrated production at Northlight Theater in Chicago, and at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles (where it received 3 LA Drama Critics Circle Awards including Best Play).

Paul Rudd made his Broadway debut in Tony Award-winning The Last Night of Ballyhoo in 1997 and has since starred in Twelfth Night (1998), Three Days of Rain (2006) and Off Broadway in The Shape of Things (2001), among many other stage productions.  Kate Arrington, who is currently appearing at the Goodman Theatre in Iceman Cometh opposite Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy, is aSteppenwolf Theatre ensemble member, whose productions there include The Hot L Baltimore, The Well-Appointed Room, The Pain and the Itch and The Violet Hour. Edward Asner last appeared on Broadway in 1989, opposite Madeline Kahn in Born Yesterday.  This production of Grace marks its New York Premiere (in an updated script) and the Broadway debuts of playwright Craig Wright, director Dexter Bullard, and Michael Shannon, who have a fifteen-plus year history of collaboration in the theater on works including, most recently, Mistakes Were Made.

Complete design team, ticket information, and other Grace news will be announced shortly.  www.graceonbroadway.com.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / Retna Ltd.