Eckhart, Wiest, Blanchard Join Kidman in 'RABBIT HOLE' Film

Variety is reporting that Aaron Eckhart, Tammy Blanchard and Oscar winner Dianne Wiest will join Nicole Kidman in the big screen adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire's Broadway play "Rabbit Hole."

John Cameron Mitchell is directing and Kidman will produce through her Fox-based Blossom Films . 

Mitchell wrote and starred in the Off-Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, for which he won an Obie Award. He directed the film adaptation for which he received the Best Director Award at the Sundance Film Festival and a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actor. He was executive producer of Jonathan Caouette's documentary Tarnation (2004). His last film was Shortbus (2006), and he has directed music videos for Scissor Sisters and Bright Eyes. He adapted and directed Tennessee Williams' Kingdom of Earth for the Drama Dept Theater Company, of which he is a founding member.

Cynthia Nixon originated the lead role on Broadway and Amy Ryan played the role in a Los Angeles production. Nixon received a Tony Award for her performance.

Press notes give insight into the origin of the play, RABBIT HOLE as "David Lindsay-Abaire had become known as the author of a series of successful absurdist comedies. Yet, he wanted to depart from that comfortable style and challenge himself to write a naturalistic play. Searching for a subject, he remembered what his playwriting teacher, Marsha Norman, had told him once, "if you want to write a good play, write about the thing that frightens you most in the world." It took years, and becoming a dad, for him to understand her advice. "When my son, Nicholas, was three years old, we heard a really sad story about friends of friends whose child had died very suddenly," he said. "Hearing that story, I put myself in the shoes of the parents. I thought, ‘This is what Marsha Norman is talking about.'

David Lindsay-Abaire is an American playwright and lyricist. He was born (1969) into a family of five he describes as "very blue collar." He attended Boston public schools until the seventh grade, when he received a six-year scholarship to Milton Academy. It was there that he first became interested in writing for the theatre. He went on to concentrate in theatre at Sarah Lawrence College, and later studied at the Julliard School, where he wrote under the tutelage of Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang.  Walking a fine line between grave reality and joyous lunacy, the world of his plays is often dark, funny, blithe, enigmatic, hopeful, ironic, and somewhat cockeyed. "My plays tend to be peopled with outsiders in search of clarity." His works include Fuddy Meers, about a wife who suddenly leaves her husband and hops a bus in search of freedom, enlightenment, and the meaning of life; Rabbit Hole, produced in 2006 with Cynthia Nixon and Tyne Daly, earned him the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Kimberly Akimbo, Wonder of the World, Dotting and Dashing, Snow Angel, and A Devil Inside.

Lindsay-Abaire has written two screenplays, "Robots" and "Inkheart" (2007); and provided the book for Shrek The Musical.

Photo Credit: Sarah DeBoer/Retna Ltd.

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