Tony-Winner Douglas Hodge to Return to Broadway as CYRANO

Roundabout Theatre Company has just announced that Tony® Award winner Douglas Hodge will star in a new Broadway production of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, with a translation by Ranjit Bolt and directed by Jamie Lloyd.

Cyrano de Bergerac will begin previews on September 14, 2012 and open officially on October 11, 2012 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42^nd Street).  This will be a limited engagement through November 25, 2012. The full cast & design team will be announced soon.

About the casting and production, Roundabout's Aritistic Director Todd Haimes said “This production of Cyrano de Bergerac sprang from my desire to work with Doug Hodge. Doug is an incredibly skillful and highly-trained actor, and what we all saw him do in La Cage aux Folles was only a glimpse into his immense talent.  We both wanted his return to Broadway to be in the kind of classic role and play that offer a worthy challenge. Cyrano is certainly a play that demands range from the title character, jumping from wordplay and swordplay to romance and tragedy in short order. The play has stood the test of time with good reason – it’s filled with beautiful, poetic language and vivid characters who only get more fascinating as we continue to see great actors take them on. I’m thrilled by the vision that Jamie Lloyd (who directed Doug in his tour-de-force performance of Inadmissible Evidence last year) has for Cyrano, and I think audiences are going to find themselves looking at this play in new ways.” 

A enduring masterwork with some of the wittiest lines ever written for the stage, Cyrano de Bergerac is a clever and touching story about the power of love, the art of wordplay and the joy of finding what you’ve always wanted right under your nose.  Cyrano's a nobleman with a head for poetry and a nose for miles. All of Paris adores him except for his true love Roxanne, who can’t see past his all-too-prominent facial feature. Instead, she falls for a handsome young cadet named Christian. But when Christian admits he’s tongue-tied with Roxanne, Cyrano gives him the romantic words guaranteed to win her heart. With Christian’s looks and Cyrano’s language, it’s a foolproof plan! Or is it? 

Douglas Hodge was most recently seen on Broadway in La Cage aux Folles and received a Tony® Award for his performance as “Albin.”  This past season, Hodge was directed by Jamie Lloyd in a sold out run in John Osborne’s play Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse in London, in which he received an Olivier nomination. 

Director Jamie Lloyd was Associate Director of the Donmar from 2008 to 2011.  Jamie Lloyd's recent theatre credits include The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); She Stoops to Conquer (National, Olivier Theatre); The Faith Machine and The Pride (Royal Court; Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement for The Pride).

 TICKET INFORMATION:

Only Roundabout subscribers have first access to tickets.  To become a Roundabout Subscriber, visit www.roundabouttheatre.org or call Roundabout Ticket Services (212) 719-1300 today.  Single Tickets will be available to the general public this summer.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:

Cyrano de Bergerac will play Tuesday through Saturday evening at 8:00PM with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00PM.  

BIOGRAPHIES:

Douglas Hodge (Cyrano) is the consummate British actor who took New York by storm with his Tony award-winning (and Olivier award-winning) performance as "Albin" in La Cage Aux Folles.  It was hilarious and electrifying, and he truly ignited the NY scene.  Douglas has also had an incredible career on the London stage (from “Nathan Detroit” in Guys and Dolls to numerous productions of works by Shakespeare and Pinter), and on film and television (from Ridley Scott's Robin Hood to several leading roles in classic BBC dramas).  Douglas also starred in John Osborne’s play Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse in London, in which he received an Olivier nomination and delivered a tour-de-force performance for a sold out run.  He most recently wrapped the independent film Serena, directed by Susanne Bier, in Prague opposite Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, and will next shoot Caught In Flight, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, opposite Naomi Watts, and Kevin Asch’s Affluenza in NY.  Douglas is currently directing Torch Song Trilogy for the Menier Chocolate Factory in London.    

Edmond Rostand  (Playwright) b. Apr. 1, 1868, d. Dec. 2, 1918, was a French dramatist whose plays represent the final flowering of the 19th-century romantic tradition. His greatest work, Cyrano de Bergerac (1897; Eng. trans., 1898), was a dazzling popular success and remains a worldwide favorite to this day. Its hero, marred by an enormous nose, rises heroically above his bodily defect in scenes of unparalleled verve, wit, and pathos. One of Rostand's earlier works, The Romancers (1894; Eng. trans., 1899), has been adapted as the highly successful musical comedy The Fantasticks. His other plays include L'Aiglon (The Eaglet, 1900), a sentimental account of the life of Napoleon I's ill-starred son, and Chantecler (1910), in which all the characters are animals. In 1910, Rostand became the youngest writer to be elected to the Académie Française. He died a victim of the widespread influenza epidemic of 1918.

RANJIT BOLT (Translator)  Order of the British Empire (OBE) (born 1959) is a British playwright and translator. He was born in Manchester of Anglo-Indian parents and is the nephew of playwright and screen-writer Robert Bolt. His father is literary critic Sydney Bolt, author of several books including A preface to James Joyce, and his mother has worked as a teacher of English.  Bolt was educated at The Perse School and Oxford University, and worked as a stockbroker for eight years but “I was desperate to escape, any escape route would have done, and translating turned out to be the one.”  As well as his theater work he has published a novel in verse, Losing It, a book on translation: The Art of Translation, and a verse translation for children of the fables of La Fontaine, The Hare and the Tortoise. He was awarded the OBE in 2003 for services to literature.  Asked about his approach to translating plays, he has said: “I try to follow the rule laid down by perhaps the greatest translator of all, John Dryden, who maintained that a translator should – and I paraphrase – make the version as entertaining as possible, while at the same time remaining as faithful as possible to the spirit of the original.”  Bolt has translated or adapted many classic plays into English, most of them into verse. Work includes: The Liar (Old Vic, 1989) from Le Menteur by Pierre Corneille; The Illusion (Old Vic, 1990) from L’Illusion Comique by Pierre Corneille; The Sisterhood, from Les Femmes Savantes by Molière(Chichester Festival, 1991; Round House, Washington DC, 1993); Lysistrata (Old Vic, 1993); The Venetian Twins (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1993); Le Cid  (Royal National Theatre, 1994); Tartuffe (Royal National Theatre, 2002; Oregon Shakespeare, 2005);  The Miser (Chichester Festival, 1995); Oedipus Rex and Oedipus At Colonus (Royal National Theatre, 1996);  The School for Wives, (West End 1996, Utah Shakespeare 2008); The Misanthrope (West End, 1998; Arena Stage, 2002; Merry Wives, the Musical, (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2006); The Waltz of The Toreadors, by Anouilh(Chichester Festival, 2007).

Jamie Lloyd (Director).  Recent theatre credits include The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic); She Stoops to Conquer (National, Olivier Theatre); The Faith Machine, The Pride (Royal Court; Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement for The Pride), Inadmissible Evidence, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Passion, Polar Bears (Donmar; Evening Standard Award for Best Musical for Passion), Piaf (Donmar, also Vaudeville/Teatro Liceo, Buenos Aires/Nuevo Teatro Alcala, Madrid; Hugo Award for Best Director, Clarin Award for Best Musical Production, ADEET Award for Best Production); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick), Three Days of Rain (Apollo), The Lover and The Collection (Comedy) and Elegies: a Song Cycle (Arts) in the West End; Salome (Headlong); Eric's (Liverpool Everyman) and The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible and Tricycle). His future projects include The School for Scandal (Theatre Royal, Bath) and Cyrano de Bergerac (Roundabout/American Airlines Theatre, Broadway).  Jamie was Associate Director of the Donmar from 2008 to 2011. He is the Associate Artist of Headlong.

Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2011-2012 season features Marc Camoletti’s Don’t Dress For Dinner starring Ben Daniels, Adam James, Patricia Kalember and Jennifer Tilly, adapted by Robin Hawdon, directed by John Tillinger; Simon Gray’s The Common Pursuit,directed by Moisés Kaufman; Mary Chase’s Harvey starring Jim Parsons, Jessica Hecht & Charles Kimbrough, directed by Scott Ellis. Roundabout’sTony Award winning production of Anything Goes starring Stephanie J. Block & Joel Grey, directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, is currently playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. The 2011 Tony® Award winning Anything Goes will set sail on a National Tourat Cleveland’s Playhouse Square in October 2012.  Following its opening in Cleveland, Anything Goes will cruise into more than 25 other cities during the 2012/2013 season.

Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2012-2013 season features Rupert Holmes’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood starring Chita Rivera, directed by Scott Ellis; William Inge’s Picnic directed by Sam Gold; Nick Payne’s If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet directed by Michael Longhurst, with Jake Gyllenhaal; Clifford Odets’ The Big Knife starring Bobby Cannavale, directed by Doug Hughes; Steven Levenson’s The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin directed by Scott Ellis.

Joshua Elias Harmon’s Bad Jews directed by Daniel Aukin is a world premiere production that launches the sixth season of Roundabout Underground following five critically acclaimed seasons of world-premiere productions since its premiere in 2007.