Photo Coverage: THE PHILANTHROPIST Opening Arrivals

The Philanthropist officially opened on Sunday, April 26th and BroadwayWorld.com's cameras were there as the stars arrived.

The design team includes Tim Shortall (Sets), Tobin Ost(Costumes), Rick Fisher (Lights) and Gregory Clarke (Sound).

Written as a response to Molière's The Misanthrope, Hampton's biting bourgeois comedy examines the empty, insular lives of college intellectuals. At the center of the story is Philip (Broderick), a professor who seems almost absurdly removed from the political turmoil surrounding him, including the assassination of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. This is a limited engagement through June 28th, 2009.

Tickets are available by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300, online at www.roundabouttheatre.org or at the American Airlines Box Office (227 West 42nd Street).

The Philanthropist plays Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m. with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.

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 Miriam Steinberg Center 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.

American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. 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.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2008-2009 season includes Rodgers & Hart's Pal Joey, starring Stockard Channing, Matthew Risch & Martha Plimpton, directed by Joe Mantello; Lisa Loomer's Distracted featuring Cynthia Nixon, directed by Mark Brokaw; Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, starring Mary-Louise Parker, Michael Cerveris, Paul Sparks and Peter Stormare, directed by Ian Rickson; Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist, starring Matthew Broderick, directed by David Grindley; Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, starring (in order of speaking) Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, David Strathairn, directed by Anthony Page. Roundabout's sold out production of The 39 Steps made its second Broadway transfer to the Helen Hayes Theatre on January 21, 2009.

Photos by Peter James Zielinski