Tyne Daly to Star as Maria Callas In Kennedy Center's MASTER CLASS, Tickets On Sale 10/28

The Kennedy Center today announced the casting of Emmy and Tony Award® winning actress Tyne Daly as Maria Callas in the production of Master Class by Terrence McNally which will run March 25 - April 18, 2010 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Master Class will be directed by Stephen Wadsworth. The production is part of Terrence McNally's Nights at the Opera, a five-week event featuring three of Terrence McNally's plays performed concurrently on three Kennedy Center stages. Tickets will go on sale on October 28. Complete casting will be announced in the coming weeks.

Master Class is Terrence McNally's homage to Maria Callas, world-renowned American-born Greek soprano. Inspired by a series of master classes she conducted at Juilliard, the play depicts the opera diva as she retreats into recollections about the glories, triumphs, and tragedies of her own life and career.

Tyne Daly is best known for her work on TV's "Cagney and Lacey" and her performance as Rose in the 1989 Gypsy Broadway revival. She was also Tony-nominated for her most recent appearance on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole. Her other New York theater appearances include The Butter and Egg Man (NY debut), Mystery School (OCC nomination), Gypsy and The Seagull. Regional theater credits include She Loves Me, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Queen Of The Stardust Ballroom, Private Ear/Public Eye, Oliver, The Birthday Party, Three Sisters and Come Back Little Sheba (LA Drama Logue Award).

Film roles include John and Mary, Play It As It Lays, Zoot Suit, The Enforcer and The Simian Line, as well as television movies "Larry," "The Entertainer," "Kids Like These," "The Perfect Mother," "Cagney & Lacey," and "Intimate Strangers" (Emmy nom). Her TV roles include "Judging Amy" (Emmy Award), "Christy" (Emmy Award), "Wings" (Emmy nom), and "Cagney & Lacey" (four Emmy Awards). Recordings include Out of Town, Call Me Madam, Gypsy, The World According to MR. Rogers (Grammy nom), and John Hersey's Hiroshima.

Recent work includes The Agamemnon at the Getty Amphitheater in Los Angeles as well as a guest-starring stint on "Grey's Anatomy" and the film Georgia, which she co-stars with Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. Ms. Daly was trained at the American Shakespeare Festival, Brandeis University and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Ms. Daly last appeared at the Kennedy Center in the pre-Broadway engagement of Gypsy in 1989.

Playwright Terrence McNally has received four Tony Awards®, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He won an Emmy Award for his television film Andre's Mother in 1990. A year later, he returned to writing for the stage with Lips Together, Teeth Apart. In 1992, Mr. McNally collaborated with John Kander and Fred Ebb on the script for the 1993 Tony Award®-winning musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, as well as on the script for the musical The Rink. Additionally, in collaboration with Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, he wrote the book for the musical Ragtime for which he won the 1998 Tony Award® for Best Book of a Musical. His other plays include Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1994, Corpus Christi in 1997, and the play and screen adaptation of Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune.

Stephen Wadsworth's theater projects include Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy (Berkeley Rep), a much-traveled trilogy of Marivaux plays in his own translations (originating at the McCarter in Princeton and published by Smith and Kraus), the world premieres of Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy (Long Wharf) and Beth Henley's Impossible Marriage (Roundabout), a new version of Molière's Don Juan (Shakespeare Theatre, Seattle Rep, Old Globe), and the Aeschylus Agamemnon with Tyne Daly at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. He has directed opera at La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera, among many other companies, including Seattle Opera, where his famous production of Wagner's Ring cycle played again this summer. He wrote the opera A Quiet Place with Leonard Bernstein (co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center, where he directed it 25 years ago).

The original production of Master Class premiered at the John Golden Theatre on November 5, 1995 and ran for 598 performances. The production won three Tony Awards® including Best Play, Best Actress in a Play, and Best Featured Actress in a Play. Prior to its run on Broadway, Master Class starring Zoe Caldwell and Audra MacDonald appeared at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater from September 14, 1995 - October 22, 1995.

Terrence McNally'S NIGHTS AT THE OPERA

Terrence McNally's Nights at the Opera is a five-week event featuring three of Terrence McNally's plays performed concurrently on three Kennedy Center stages. Master Class directed by Stephen Wadsworth will run March 25 - April 18, 2010 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. The Lisbon Traviata directed by Christopher Ashley will run March 20 - April 11, 2010 in the Terrace Theater. Golden Age, a new play co-produced with the Philadelphia Theatre Company and part of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, will run March 12 - April 4, 2010 in the Family Theater.
TICKET INFORMATION

Performances of Master Class will run March 25 - April 18, 2010 in the Eisenhower Theater. Tickets range from $25-$80 and go on sale October 28, 2009 at the Kennedy Center box office, by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600, or online. Patrons living outside the Washington metropolitan area may dial toll-free at (800) 444-1324 or visit our website at kennedy-center.org.

Photo credit Walter McBride

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