RIALTO CHATTER: Nicole Kidman to Return to Broadway in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH?

Michael Riedel is reporting in today's New York Post that Nicole Kidman, who was last seen on Broadway in 1998 in THE BLUE ROOM, will be returning to the stage next fall in a revival of Tennessee Williams' SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, directed by David Cromer. 

SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star (to be played by Kidman), Princess Kosmonopolis (a.k.a., Alexandra Del Lago), who he hopes to use to help him break into the movies. The main reason he returns to his home town is to get back what he had in his youth; primarily, his old girlfriend, whose father had run him out of town years before.

The show has been seen on Broadway twice with the original production (starring Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Sidney Blackmer, Madeleine Sherwood, Diana Hyland, Logan Ramsey, John Napier and Rip Torn) in 1959. A 1975 revival starred Christopher Walken and Irene Worth and won Worth a Tony Award for Best Actress. A London production in 1985 starred Lauren Bacall and later played Los Angeles.

It's been seen on the big and small screen as well, with Paul Newman, Geraldine Page and Shirley Night starring in a 1962 movie that was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, and a 1989 TV movie Starring ElizaBeth Taylor and Mark Harmon.

Nicole Kidman will next been seen on the big screen in the film of RABBIT HOLE, adapted from the stage play by David Lindsay-Abaire. 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.