New Lonergan Play, with Broderick, to Bow at the Old Globe

Matthew Broderick, who was previously announced to star in the Broadway-bound Kenneth Lonergan play The Starry Messenger, will first take the show to the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Starry Messenger, which concerns a middle-aged astronomy professor attempting to work out the nature of the universe and of marriage, will begin previews at the Old Globe on January 13th, open January 19th and run through February 18th. Lonergan is also set to direct the play, for which neither Broadway dates nor a theatre have yet been announced.

Roger Berlind, Carole Shorenstein Hays, Kim Parker, Daryl Roth and Scott Rudin were previously announced as the Broadway producers of the new play by the author of This Is Our Youth and Lobby Hero.

Lonergan's 2000 film You Can Count On Me also featured Broderick alongside Laura Linney. The playwright and filmmaker's other movie credits include writing some or all of Gangs of New York, Analyze This and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Margaret, his next film to be released, stars Broderick, Anna Paquin, Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo.

Broderick is currently appearing opposite Nathan Lane in the smash revival of The Odd Couple, and was seen in the recent film version of The Producers. In the latter, he once again starred opposite Lane and recreated his Tony-nominated performance as Leo Bloom. Broderick's Broadway credits include Taller Than a Dwarf, Night Must Fall and Biloxi Blues. He received a Tony for his role in the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and for 1983's Brighton Beach Memoirs. He appeared off-Broadway in The Foreigner, and other off-Broadway credits include The Widow Clare and Torch Song Trilogy. Broderick's other screen credits include The Stepford Wives, the TV movie musical of The Music Man, Torch Song Trilogy, Biloxi Blues, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Lion King.

The Old Globe's 2006-2007 mainstage season will also include Hershey Felder's George Gershwin Alone (Sept. 9th-Oct. 22nd, 2006), Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy and the late August Wilson's Two Trains Running (May 5th-June 10th, 2007). The in-the-round Cassius Carter Centre Stage's season will kick off with a production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (as the first play in its five-year Classics Up Close series), as well as Greg Kotis' satiric Pig Farm (Sept. 23rd-Oct. 29th, as a "co-world premiere" with the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York), the world premiere of Itamar Moses' The Four of Us (Feb. 3rd-March 11th) and Annie Weisman's Hold Please (March 31st-May 6th).

Visit www.oldglobe.org for more information.