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Elizabeth McGovern to Star in TIME AND THE CONWAYS on Broadway
ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY
Announces
Oscar, Emmy & Golden Globe Nominee
ELIZABETH McGOVERN
To Star In A New Broadway Production Of
TIME AND THE CONWAYS
By J. B. PRIESTLEY
Directed by Tony nominee REBECCA TAICHMAN
Previews begin September 14, 2017
Official opening October 10, 2017
Limited engagement through November 26, 2017 on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre
Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) announces the new Broadway production of Time and the Conways by J. B. Priestley, directed by Tony nominee Rebecca Taichman (Indecent), and starring Oscar, Emmy & Golden Globe nominee Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey). Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938.
Time and the Conways will begin preview performances on September 14, 2017 and opens officially on October 10, 2017. This is a limited engagement through November 26, 2017 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street).
Roundabout is pleased to welcome back Oscar nominee Elizabeth McGovern following her success as “Cora Crawley” in “Downton Abbey,” for which she won two Screen Actors Guild, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award. McGovern made her Roundabout debut playing Ophelia in the 1992 production of Hamlet. Roundabout also welcomes Tony-nominated director Rebecca Taichman, who made her Broadway debut this season with Indecent.
In 1919 Britain, Mrs. Conway (Downton Abbey’s Elizabeth McGovern) is full of optimism during her daughter’s lavish twenty-first birthday celebration. The Great War is over, wealth is in the air, and the family’s dreams bubble over like champagne. Jump nineteen years into the future, though, and the Conways’ lives have transformed unimaginably. This time-traveling play by J.B. Priestley (An Inspector Calls) takes place at the crossroads of today and tomorrow—challenging our notions of choice, chance and destiny. Tony nominee Rebecca Taichman (Indecent) directs.
Additional casting and the design team will be announced soon.
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets for Time and the Conways are first made available to subscribers and donors. Whether you are interested in the best value or VIP experiences, Roundabout has a package option for you. Visit roundabouttheatre.org or call 212-719-1300 for more info. Sign up for Roundabout’s email club at roundabouttheatre.org to be notified when tickets go on sale to the public.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
Time and the Conways will play Tuesday through Saturday evening at 8:00PM with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00PM.
BIOGRAPHIES:
ELIZABETH McGOVERN (Mrs. Conway). Academy Award-nominated actress Elizabeth McGovern is Cora, Countess of Grantham in the critically acclaimed series “Downton Abbey.” The smash hit “Downton Abbey” wrapped its final season after winning multiple awards including Emmys, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs. Elizabeth has been nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance as Lady Cora. While studying at The Juilliard School in New York City in 1980, Elizabeth was offered a part in her first movie, Ordinary People, starring opposite Timothy Hutton and directed by Robert Redford. She then went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Evelyn Nesbit in Milos Forman’s Ragtime. In 1984, Elizabeth starred with Robert De Niro and James Woods in Sergio Leone’s cult gangster movie Once Upon a Time in America, and later opposite Mickey Rourke in Johnny Handsome. Her recent film Unexpected, in which she stars opposite Cobie Smulders, premiered at Sundance, and she just finished shooting Showing Roots with Maggie Grace. Her other film credits include Buffalo Soldiers, King of the Hill, She’s Having a Baby and Racing with the Moon. Since moving to England and starting a family of her own with husband Simon Curtis (director of My Week With Marilyn and Woman in Gold), Elizabeth continued to work in theatre and television. Born in Illinois, Elizabeth is also a singer-songwriter and has just recorded her third album, Still Waiting, with the band she formed and fronts, Sadie and the Hotheads. Sadie and the Hotheads have played the Isle of Wight and Hard Rock Calling Festival (Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon headlining) and have completed a mini tour with Mike and the Mechanics. She will next be seen opposite Liam Neeson in The Commuter.
J. B. PRIESTLEY (Playwright) was born in 1894 in Bradford, Yorkshire, son of a schoolmaster. He left Belle Vue School at 16 and worked in a wool office, beginning to write in his spare time. He volunteered for the army in 1914 and served throughout the First World War, surviving the grim conditions of the trenches. He gained a grant to go to Cambridge, and launched his professional career with Brief Diversions, a collection of short pieces, which attracted attention in London. After graduating, he moved to London with his first wife Pat and set up as a professional writer, reviewing, writing essays and literary biographies and reading for the publisher John Lane. His fourth novel, The Good Companions, came out in 1929 and was a huge success, followed by Angel Pavement in 1930. He entered the Theatre in 1932 with Dangerous Corner, and dominated the London stage during the 1930s with a succession of plays such as Eden End, I Have Been Here Before, Time and the Conways, When We Are Married, Johnson Over Jordan, and into the 1940s with They Came to a City, An Inspector Calls, The Linden Tree, Summer Day's Dream and The Glass Cage in 1958. During the Second World War he established a new reputation as a broadcaster. A prolific writer he continued writing novels, notably Bright Day and Lost Empires, and an important list of non-fiction, English Journey launched him in a new role as a social commentator. “Midnight on the Desert” and “Rain Upon Godshill” were chapters of his autobiography, Margin Released; “Literature and Western Man,” the sum of a lifetime's reading; and three social histories “The Prince of Pleasure,” “The Edwardians” and “Victoria's Heyday.” Over all, he published more than 100 books – non-fiction, fiction and drama, as well as countless newspaper articles and reviews. He was married three times and had four daughters and one son. He was a lifelong socialist of the old kind, yet never joined the Labour Party. He was a spokesman for the ordinary people, unashamedly middlebrow, patriotic and honest, and opposed to the class system. He turned down offers of a knighthood and a peerage, but gladly accepted the Order of Merit in 1977. He died in 1984.
REBECCA TAICHMAN (Director). Broadway: Indecent by Paula Vogel (co-creator; Tony nomination, Drama League nomination, Outer Critics Circle nomination, and Lucille Lortel nomination). Select Off-Broadway: How To Transcend A Happy Marriage and The Oldest Boy by Sarah Ruhl (LCT); Luck of the Irish by Kirsten Greenidge (LCT3); Familiar by Danai Gurira, Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl, Milk Like Sugar by Kirsten Greenidge (Playwrights Horizons); Orlando by Sarah Ruhl (CSC); Orpheus (NYCO); Dark Sisters (MTG/Gotham); Menopausal Gentleman (The Ohio). Regional includes Time and the Conways (Old Globe); productions at Yale Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Old Globe, ART, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, McCarter, and Woolly Mammoth among others. Rebecca is a Henry Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute, and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. rebeccataichman.com.
Roundabout Theatre Company is committed to producing the highest quality theatre with the finest artists, sharing stories that endure, and providing accessibility to all audiences. A not-for-profit company, Roundabout fulfills its mission each season through the production of classic plays and musicals; development and production of new works by established and emerging writers; educational initiatives that enrich the lives of children and adults; and a subscription model and audience outreach programs that cultivate and engage all audiences.
Roundabout Theatre Company presents a variety of plays, musicals, and new works on its five stages, each of which is specifically designed to enhance the needs of 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 new plays. 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. The Stephen Sondheim Theatre offers a state of the art LEED certified Broadway theatre in which to stage major large-scale musical revivals. Together these distinctive homes serve to enhance Roundabout’s work on each of its stages.
American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Roundabout’s season in 2017 includes Arthur Miller’s The Price, directed by Terry Kinney; Marvin’s Room by Scott McPherson, directed by Anne Kauffman; Napoli, Brooklyn by Meghan Kennedy, directed by Gordon Edelstein; and the national tour of Sam Mendes & Rob Marshall’s Tony Award-winning production of Cabaret.
Roundabout’s new off-Broadway season dedicated to new work at the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre in 2017-2018 will include The Last Match, by Anna Ziegler, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch; Amy and the Orphans, by Lindsey Ferrentino, directed by Scott Ellis; Skintight, by Joshua Harmon, directed by Daniel Aukin.
Roundabout Underground’s 2017-2018 season will include Too Heavy for your Pocket, by Jiréh Breon Holder.
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