THE PRESENT, Starring Cate Blanchett, Opens on Broadway this Sunday!

The Sydney Theatre Company production of The Present opens Sunday, January 8. Andrew Upton's new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's first play, Platonov, The Present is directed by John Crowley at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 19, 2017.

THE PRESENT features the Sydney Theatre Company cast of 13, each making their Broadway debut, including Cate Blanchett (Anna) and Richard Roxburgh (Mikhail), as well as Anna Bamford (Maria), Andrew Buchanan (Osip), David Downer (Yegor), Eamon Farren (Kirill), Martin Jacobs (Alexei), Brandon McClelland (Dimitri), Jacqueline McKenzie (Sophia), Marshall Napier (Ivan), Susan Prior (Sasha), Chris Ryan (Sergei) and Toby Schmitz (Nikolai).

Set and costume design for The Present is by Alice Babidge, with lighting design by Nick Schlieper. Stefan Gregory is Sound Designer and Composer.

THE PRESENT is produced on Broadway by Stuart Thompson, Sydney Theatre Company, Jon B. Platt, Scott M. Delman, Ruth Hendel, The Shubert Organization, Robert G. Bartner, John Gore and Jimter Productions LLC.

Variously known as Platonov, Wild Honey, Fatherlessness and The Disinherited, Anton Chekhov's first play was not discovered until 1920, some 16 years after the playwright's death. Andrew Upton's adaptation is set post-Perestroika in the mid-1990s at an old country house where friends gather to celebrate the birthday of the independent but compromised widow Anna Petrovna (Blanchett). At the center is the acerbic and witty Platonov (Roxburgh) with his wife, his former students and friends and their partners. They may appear comfortable, but boiling away inside is a mess of unfinished, unresolved relationships, fuelled by twenty years of denial, regret and thwarted desire.

Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh previously appeared together on the New York stage in Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of Andrew Upton's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Additionally, Cate Blanchett appeared in New York in Sydney Theatre Company's productions of Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Maids.

Andrew Upton was at the creative helm of Sydney Theatre Company (STC) for eight years from 2008-2015, the first five as co-Artistic Director alongside Cate Blanchett. During the Upton/Blanchett years, STC's international touring profile increased with tours of Waiting for Godot to the UK, Gross und Klein (Big and Small) to the UK, France, Austria and Germany, both A Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya to Washington and New York and The Maids to New York. A History of Everything, commissioned by STC as a co-production with Belgian theatre company Onteroend Goed, has also had seasons in Chicago and in Belgium, Holland and the UK while Long Day's Journey into Night played in Portland, Oregon.

Tickets are available at the Barrymore Theatre box office or through Telecharge.com by calling 212-239-6200 or visiting www.Telecharge.com.

The Barrymore Theatre box office hours are as follows: Mondays through Saturdays from 10am to 8:30pm and Sundays from 12pm to 6pm. A limited number of general rush tickets are available when the box office opens at 10am the day of the performance (Noon on Sundays) at $45 each. Limit of two tickets per person. Subject to availability.

www.ThePresentBroadway.com