Geoffrey Rush To Star in Australian Premiere of DROWSY CHAPERONE

Fresh off reports that he will be returning to the Australian stage next year in DIARY OF A MADMAN with Sydney's Company B, Variety reports today that Geoffrey Rush will star in the Australian premiere of "The Drowsy Chaperone," the first show of the Melbourne Theater Company's 2010 season. 

Rush will star as Man in Chair, the musical theater enthusiast who both narrates and enters into the action of his favorite vintage tuner. 

MTC artistic director Simon Philips will direct DROWSY, which will also star Shane Jacobsen ("Kenny") and former Sydney Theater Company topper Robyn Nevin. In keeping with thier "populist" season, the MTC will also produce Samuel Adamson's adaptation of Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother" and premiere Tony McNamara's satire "THE GRENADE starring Austialian stage star Garry McDonald.

Geoffrey Rush won a lead actor Tony this year for his role in Armfield's production of Ionesco's EXIT THE KING which transferred to Broadway after an earlier run at Belvoir St. Armfield. His stage highlights inclue Sydney Critics Circle Award, Variety Club Award and the Victorian Green Room Award for THE DIARY OF A MADMAN in 1989, Sydney Critics' Circle nominations for THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, UNCLE VANYA, and OLEANNA, for which he received the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award (1994). He will reprise his role in DIARY OF A MADMAN next year with Sydney's Company B. He has appeared in over 70 theatrical productions and more than 20 films. For "Shine," Rush received Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, Film Critics' Circle of Australia, Broadcast Film Critics, AFI, NY and LA Film Critics' Awards. Film highlights: "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" (Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG), Quills (Oscar nom.), "Shakespeare in Love" (Oscar, Golden Globe noms.), "Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy," "Munich," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Candy," "Intolerable Cruelty," "Finding Nemo," "The Banger Sisters," "Swimming Upstream," "Lantana," "Frida," "The Tailor of Panama," "Mystery Men," "Les Misérables."