WIT, Led By Cynthia Nixon, Begins Previews

Cynthia Nixon returns to MTC to star in the Broadway premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play WIT by Margaret Edson, directed by MTC's award-winning Artistic Director Lynne Meadow. The limited engagement of WIT begins previews tonight and opens Thursday, January 26, 2012 at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

Nixon returns to Manhattan Theatre Club following her Tony Award-winning performance in David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. Nixon is one of the most acclaimed and sought after actresses working today. In addition to Rabbit Hole, her stage credits include: Distracted, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Women, and her remarkable simultaneous Broadway performances in Hurlyburly and The Real Thing. Nixon earned her first Emmy as ‘Miranda Hobbes' in the iconic HBO series "Sex and the City," and a second Emmy for her guest starring role on "Law & Order: SVU." She can currently be seen in Showtime's critically acclaimed series "The Big C" opposite Laura Linney.

WIT follows a brilliant and exacting poetry professor (Nixon) as she undergoes experimental treatment for cancer. A scholar who devoted her life to academia, she must now face the irony and injustice of becoming the subject of research.

WIT had its New York premiere in 1998 receiving universal acclaim and ran Off-Broadway for over 500 performances. It was the most honored play of the season garnering the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was named Best Play by the New York Drama Critic Circle, the Drama Desk Awards, the Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Drama League, and the Lucille Lortel Awards.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, MTC has become one of the country's most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Over the past three decades, MTC productions have earned a total of 18 Tony Awards and six Pulitzer Prizes, an accomplishment unparalleled by a New York theatrical institution. MTC has a Broadway home at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) and an Off-Broadway theatre at New York City Center - Stage I (131 West 55th Street). Renowned MTC productions include Good People; The Whipping Man; Time Stands Still; The Royal Family; Ruined; The American Plan; Come Back, Little Sheba; Blackbird; Translations; Shining City; Rabbit Hole; Doubt; Proof; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Love! Valour! Compassion!; A Small Family Business; Sylvia; Putting It Together; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; Crimes of the Heart; and Ain't Misbehavin.'