RIALTO CHATTER: JERUSALEM Headed to Broadway with Rylance this Season?

The New York Times reports this morning that Mark Rylance, currently starring in La Bete alongside David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, may be reprising his role as Johnny "Rooster" Byron in Jez Butterworth's award-winning play, Jerusalem, on Broadway this season.

Ian Rickson's Royal Court Theatre production of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play, and Mark Rylance collected the Best Actor Award for his universally celebrated performance as Johnny "Rooster" Byron. The production then transferred to the West End's Apollo Theatre and ran from 28 January 2010 through 24 April 2010. Designed by Ultz, with lighting by Mimi Jordan Sherin, sound by Ian Dickinson for Autograph and music by Stephen Warbeck, Jerusalem was produced in the West End by Sonia Friedman Productions, Royal Court Theatre Productions and Old Vic Productions, in association with Lee Menzies. Rylance took home a 2010 Olivier Award for his performance in the West End production, as well.

A Broadway transfer of the production has been in the works ever since, and Rylance revealed to the Times in an interview yesterday that the show could come in as early as this season: "It's all moving ahead well for ‘Jerusalem,' especially now that Mackenzie is coming over, because I wasn't sure I could do it without him," Mr. Rylance said. "Everyone seems on board for the spring, the final arrangements seem underway. The plan is to start rehearsals for Broadway three or four weeks after ‘La Bête' finishes up."

To read the full report in the New York Times, click here.

The West End production of Jerusalem starred Mark Rylance (Johnny "Rooster" Byron) and Mackenzie Crook (Ginger), alongside original Royal Court cast members Jessica Barden (Pea), Tom Brooke (Lee), Alan David (The Professor), Aimeé-Ffion Edwards (Phaedra), Lennie Harvey (Marky), Gerard Horan (Wesley), Danny Kirrane (Davey), Charlotte Mills (Tanya), Sarah Moyle (Ms Fawcett), Harvey Robinson (Mr Parsons) and Barry Sloane (Troy Whitworth).

No casting information for a potential Broadway run has been announced.

Jerusalem is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants his dad to take him to the fair and Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking. Can he survive through til sunset?

Multi award-winning actor Mark Rylance was most recently in the West End playing Robert In Boeing-Boeing, a role he reprised on Broadway where he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. Rylance can currently be seen at the Duchess Theatre in Samuel Beckett's Endgame. As Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre his work as an actor included the title roles in Henry V and Hamlet as well as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Olivia in Twelfth Night. His other theatre work includes many productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Glasgow Citizens as well as True West for the Donmar Warehouse, Bloody Poetry for the Royal Court and The Maids for Shared Experience. In the West End he played Benedict in Much Ado about Nothing directed by Matthew Warchus, winning him the Olivier Award for Best Actor. His film and television work includes The Other Boleyn Girl, Prospero's Books, Angels and Insects, Leonardo and, most recently, David Kelly in C4's The Government Inspector for which he won the BAFTA Best Actor Award.

For more information, visit www.jerusalemtheplay.com.

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos