Ivey Led THE GLASS MENAGERIE To Play At Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre, Previews Begin 3/5

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) in association with Long Wharf Theatre presents Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, directed by Gordon Edelstein with Patch Darragh (Tom Wingfield), two-time Tony® Award winner Judith Ivey (Amanda Wingfield), Keira Keeley (Laura Wingfield).

The Glass Menagerie will begin performances on Friday, March 5th,, 2010 and open officially on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street). This will be a limited engagement.

The design team will include two-time Tony® Award winner Michael Yeargan (Sets), two-time Tony® Award winner Martin Pakledinaz (Costumes), two-time Tony® Award winner & MacArthur Fellow Jennifer Tipton (Lights), David Budries (Sound).

Additional casting will be announced shortly.

In this fresh interpretation of Williams' haunting memory play, Tom Wingfield (Patch Darragh) sits writing in a hotel room, trying to forge his past into art. Soon Tom's space is overtaken by the cramped apartment he once shared with his mother Amanda (Judith Ivey), his beloved sister Laura (Keira Keeley) and unrequited dreams as fragile as Laura's collection of tiny glass animals. There, Tom relives the Gentleman Caller's visit - the night that changed his family forever.

This production of Williams' semi-autobiographical play premiered May 20th, 2009 at the Long Wharf Theatre (Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director) in New Haven, CT and was directed by Gordon Edelstein. The play originally premiered in Chicago in 1944, moving to New York the next year, where it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, featuring Laurette Taylor as Amanda in one of the iconic performances in American theatre history. The Glass Menagerie was Williams' first successful play.

Gordon Edelstein returns to Roundabout Theatre Company having directed Martin McDonagh's A Skull in Connemara at the Gramercy Theatre in 2001. Judith Ivey returns to Roundabout Theatre Company after performing the role of "Sally Durant Plummer" in the 2001 production of Follies.

Tickets will be available in the winter 2010 by calling Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300, online at www.roundabouttheatre.org or at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre box office (111 West 46 Street).

The Glass Menagerie will play Tuesday through Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.

Tennessee Williams (Playwright). Born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1914, Tennessee was the son of a shoe company executive and a Southern belle. Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as happy and carefree. This sense of belonging and comfort were lost, however, when his family moved to the urban environment of St. Louis, Missouri. It was there he began to look inward, and to write - "because I found life unsatisfactory." Williams' early adult years were occupied with attending college at three different universities, a brief stint working at his father's shoe company, and a move to New Orleans, which began a lifelong love of the city and set the locale for A Streetcar Named Desire. Williams spent a number of years traveling throughout the country and trying to write. His first critical acclaim came in 1944 when The Glass Menagerie opened in Chicago and went to Broadway. It won a Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and, as a film, the New York Film Critics' Circle Award. At the height of his career in the late 1940s and 1950s, Williams worked with the premier artists of the time, most notably Elia Kazan, the director for stage and screen productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, and the stage productions of Camino Real, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and Sweet Bird Of Youth. Kazan also directed Williams' film Baby Doll. In 1961 he wrote The Night Of The Iguana, and in 1963, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More. His plays, which had long received criticism for openly addressing taboo topics, were finding more and more detractors. Around this time, Williams' longtime companion, Frank Merlo, died of cancer. Williams began to depend more and more on alcohol and drugs and though he continued to write, completing a book of short stories and another play, he was in a downward spiral. In 1969 he was hospitalized by his brother. After his release from the hospital in the 1970s, Williams wrote plays, a memoir, poems, short stories and a novel. In 1975 he published "Memoirs," which detailed his life and discussed his addiction to drugs and alcohol, as well as his homosexuality. In 1980 Williams wrote Clothes For A Summer Hotel, based on the lives of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Only three years later, Tennessee Williams died in a New York City hotel filled with half-finished bottles of wine and pills.

Gordon Edelstein (Director) is in his seventh season as Long Wharf Theatre's Artistic Director. Mr. Edelstein has directed the world premiere of Athol Fugard's Coming Home already during Long Wharf Theatre's 2008-09 season. His recent productions of Arthur Miller's The Price and Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (which he also adapted) were on numerous best of 2007 lists including the Wall Street Journal. As a director, he has garnered three Connecticut Critics Circle Awards and during his tenure at Long Wharf Theatre, the theatre has produced world premieres by Craig Lucas, Julia Cho, Noah Haidle, Dael Orlandersmith, and Anna Deavere Smith. Over the course of his career, he has also directed and/or produced premieres by Philip Glass, Arthur Miller, Paula Vogel, Donald Margulies, James Lapine, Charles Mee, Mac Wellman, and Martin McDonagh, among many others, and has directed an extremely diverse body of work from Sophocles to Pinter, and from Shakespeare to Beckett. Under his artistic leadership, Long Wharf Theatre has received 14 additional Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including six best actor or actress awards in plays that he directed. He was also given the organization's Tom Killen Award, given annually to an individual who has made an indelible impact on the Connecticut theatrical landscape. Mr. Edelstein has directed countless plays and workshops for Long Wharf Theatre including the world premieres of BFE (transfer to Playwrights Horizons), The Day the Bronx Died (transfer to NY and London), A Dance Lesson, and The Times, as well as We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, A New War, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Anna Christie, The Front Page, and Mourning Becomes Electra, starring Jane Alexander. Prior to assuming artistic leadership of Long Wharf Theatre, Mr. Edelstein helmed Seattle's ACT Theatre for five years.In addition, this past summer Mr. Edelstein directed Some Americans Abroad at Second Stage in New York City. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in History and Religious Studies from Grinnell College in 1976 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Grinnell College in 2003.

Patch Darragh (Tom Wingfield) most recent credit is Gordon Edelstein's production of The Glass Menagerie. Mr. Darragh appeared on Broadway with Paul Newman in The Westport Country Playhouse production of Our Town. Off-Broadway, Mr. Darragh starred in Crimes of the Heart in Kathleen Turner's directorial debut at the Roundabout. The show originated at Williamstown where he has starred previously in two world premieres, Dissonance and The Sugar Syndrome. Other Off-Broadway credits include Alan Ball's All That I Will Ever Be for New York Theater Workshop; The Ruby Sunrise in Oskar Eustis' production at the Public Theater; Where We're Born at Rattlestick; Safe at Studio Dante; Spin, directed by Evan Cabnet for The stageFarm; The Grille Room, directed by Thomas Kail, and The Secret Agenda of Trees, directed by Sam Gold, both at Cherry Lane; and Golden Age. Patch played Romeo at the Guthrie, starred in the regional premiere of Wit, as well as The Violet Hour at The Old Globe, Number 11 Blue & White at The Humana Festival, ctrl + alt + delete at San Jose Rep, and The Mistakes Madeline Made at Yale Rep, among others. On television he's starred on "Cupid," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Damages,"" Law & Order," in a TNT Original Movie, on Spike TV & MTV, and recurred on "Guiding Light," and in the upcoming NBC drama "Mercy." Films include Lucky Eight and Will Frears' upcoming Coach. For BW.

Judith Ivey (Amanda Wingfield) is the recipient of the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for her portrayals in Steaming and Hurlyburly, the Obie Award for her performance in The Moonshot Tape, and countless others for her stage and film work. Ms. Ivey's most recent credit is Gordon Edelstein's production of The Glass Menagerie and recently was honored with the Texas Medal of Arts for Theatre. Some film credits include The Devil's Advocate; Washington Square; Mystery, Alaska; Brighton Beach Memoirs; Love Hurts; Compromising Positions; What Alice Found; and Flags Of Our Fathers. Judith starred in four television series, the most memorable being "Designing Women." Some television film credits include The Long, Hot Summer; What The Deaf Man Heard (Emmy nomination); Rosered and Half A Dozen Babies. Judith portrayed Ann Landers in The Lady With All The Answers at the Northlight Theatre in Chicago this past season, and will reprise that role in the fall at the Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC. Ms. Ivey's most recent directing credit is Secrets Of A Soccermom at the Snapple Theatre. Prior to that she directed The Butcher Of Baraboo, Fugue (Cherry Lane Theatre), Southern Comforts, Bad Dates, More, and Steel Magnolias. Judith is director of the musical Vanities, which opens at Second Stage in July 2009. Ms. Ivey is married to Tim Braine, and is the proud mother of Maggie and Tom. Judith has been a member of Actors' Equity for 33 years, and the SSDC for four years.

KEIRA KEELEY (Laura Wingfield) most recent credit is Gordon Edelstein's production of The Glass Menagerie and is honored to be doing this Tennessee Williams play. Upcoming is Summer Play Festival We Declare You a Terrorist. Previously the role of Mairead in The Lieutenant of Inishmore at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Ms. Keeley has debuted roles in Green Girl by Sarah Hammond at The Public in NYC, Local Story and Departures by Kristen Palmer, and in the Ross Wetzsteon Obie Award Winning The Young Left by Greg Keller at The Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC. In addition to those premieres, she performed in Adam Bock's 3 Time Obie Award Winning The Thugs at Soho Rep, continuing an association with Bock which began in his award winning Three Guys and a Brenda at the Humana Festival of New American Plays. At Actors Theatre of Louisville, she was cast in The Crucible and The Madwoman of Chaillot. At Lincoln Center, Keira appeared as Juliet with the New York Philharmonic in Romeo and Juliet. Through staged readings, Keira has worked on many new plays with New York Stage & Film, New York Theatre Workshop, New Dramatists, Reverie Productions, Intar Theatre, and Queens Theatre in the Park. For more information, visit www.KeiraKeeley.com.

Long Wharf Theatre (Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director; Ray Cullom, Managing Director), entering its 45th season, is recognized as a leader in American theatre, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres. More than 30 Long Wharf Theatre productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or Off-Broadway, some of which include Durango by Julia Cho, the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit by Margaret Edson, The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer and The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn. The theatre is an incubator of new works, including this past season's A Civil War Christmas, by Paula Vogel, and Coming Home, by Athol Fugard. Long Wharf Theatre has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle and the Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

Roundabout Theatre Company is one of the country's leading not-for-profit theatres. The company contributes invaluably to New York's cultural life by staging the highest quality revivals of classic plays and musicals as well as new plays by established writers. Roundabout consistently partners great artists with great works to bring a fresh and exciting interpretation that makes each production relevant and important to today's audiences.

Roundabout Theatre Company currently produces at three permanent homes each of which is designed specifically to enhance the needs of the Roundabout's mission. Off-Broadway, the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre, with its simple sophisticated design is perfectly suited to showcasing intimate plays and musicals. The grandeur of its Broadway home on 42nd Street, American Airlines Theatre, sets the ideal stage for the classics. Roundabout's Studio 54 provides an exciting and intimate Broadway venue for its musical and special event productions. Together these three distinctive venues serve to enhance the work on each of its stages.

American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts; and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2008-2009 season includes Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist, starring Matthew Broderick, directed by David Grindley; Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, starring (in order of speaking) Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, John Glover, directed by Anthony Page. Roundabout's sold out production of The 39 Steps made its second Broadway transfer to the Helen Hayes Theatre on January 21, 2009.

Roundabout Theatre Company's 2009-2010 season includes Mark Saltzman, Irving Berlin & Scott Joplin's The Tin Pan Alley Rag, directed by Stafford Arima; Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie, starring Sienna Miller & Jonny Lee Miller, directed by Mark Brokaw; Michael Stewart, Lee Adams and Charles Strouse's Bye Bye Birdie, starring John Stamos, Gina Gershon, Bill Irwin & Nolan Gerard Funk, directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom; Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, directed by Tony Taccone; Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy, directed by Scott Ellis; Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days, directed by Marc Bruni and Noël Coward's Present Laughter starring Victor Garber, directed by Nicholas Martin.

For more information visit www.roundabouttheatre.org.

Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson

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