.png)
Roundabout Announces BERNARDT/HAMLET with Janet McTeer, Broadway
Announces
Oscar Nominee and Golden Globe, Tony & Olivier Award Winner
JANET McTEER
To Star In The World Premiere Of
BERNHARDT/HAMLET
By Pulitzer Prize finalist THERESA REBECK
Directed by Tony nominee MORITZ VON STUELPNAGEL
On Broadway
A Roundabout Theatre Company commission
Previews begin Saturday, September 1, 2018
Official opening Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Limited engagement through November 18, 2018 on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre
Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) announces the world premiere of the Roundabout-commissioned play, Bernhardt/Hamlet by Pulitzer finalist Theresa Rebeck, directed by Tony nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel, will kick off Roundabout’s 2018-2019 Broadway season. Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe, Tony & Olivier Award winner Janet McTeer will return to Broadway to star as “Sarah Bernhardt.”
Bernhardt/Hamlet will begin preview performances on September 1, 2018 and opens officially on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. This is a limited engagement through November 18, 2018 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street).
Playwright Theresa Rebeck returns to Roundabout, where she is an Associate Artist, following her hit production of The Understudy (2009) at the Laura Pels Theatre.
Mark Twain wrote: “There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses. And then there is Sarah Bernhardt.” In 1899, the international stage celebrity set out to tackle her most ambitious role yet: Hamlet. Theresa Rebeck’s new play rollicks with high comedy and human drama, set against the lavish Shakespearean production that could make or break Bernhardt’s career. Janet McTeer, “one of the finest classical actresses of her generation” (The Telegraph), brings the legendary leading lady to life.
The remaining cast and creative team will be announced soon.
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets for Bernhardt/Hamlet 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:
Bernhardt/Hamlet will play Tuesday through Saturday evening at 8:00PM with Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2:00PM, and Sunday matinees at 3:00PM.
ABOUT THE NEW PLAY INITIATIVE
Through the New Play Initiative, Roundabout proves its devotion to the development and production of new works by significant writers and artists. The Roundabout Underground program in particular, provides substantial artistic and financial resources to emerging playwrights to stage their debut productions in New York and on Roundabout’s stages. In addition to producing their first play, writers receive a commission for a future play, showing a level of commitment to writers’ careers and the future of theatre in New York that is unparalleled. The New Play Initiative has discovered and brought audiences some of the most important new voices in theatre and is dedicated to creating a diverse canon for the future of theatre. To learn more about Roundabout’s commitment to the development of new work, visit New Play Initiative.
Roundabout’s work with new and emerging playwrights and directors, as well as development of new work, is made possible by Katheryn Patterson and Tom Kempner.
We gratefully acknowledge the Roundabout Leaders for New Works: Alec Baldwin, James Costa and John Archibald, Linda L. D’Onofrio, Peggy and Mark Ellis, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jodi Glucksman, Sylvia Golden, Judith and Douglas Krupp, K. Myers, Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater, Ira Pittelman, Laura S. Rodgers, Seedlings Foundation, Mary Solomon, Lauren and Danny Stein, Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and Dr. Leonard Tow.
BIOGRAPHIES:
JANET McTEER (Sarah Bernhardt). Golden Globe, Tony® and Olivier Award-winning actress Janet McTeer stars in not one but two Netflix original series this year. She is currently filming Ozark as a series regular, season two of which will premiere later this year, and she is starring opposite Krysten Ritter in season two of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, which premiered March 8. Additionally, she will star in a lead role opposite Elizabeth Olsen in Sorry For Your Loss, a 10-episode half-hour dark comedy series for Facebook Watch. McTeer returned to Broadway in 2017, starring opposite Liev Schreiber in a revival of Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Josie Rourke. The production garnered acclaim, and an Olivier nomination for McTeer as Best Actress, under Rourke’s direction at London’s Donmar Warehouse, with McTeer starring opposite Dominic West. McTeer starred as ‘Petruchio’ in director Phyllida Lloyd’s summer 2016 riotous all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew for New York’s Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater. It’s her second time in the role, having first collaborated with Lloyd on a production at London’s Globe Theatre in 2003. It is also her third collaboration with Lloyd, having starred in the director’s Mary Stuart both in London and on Broadway. For the latter she received London’s Olivier nomination Broadway’s Drama Desk Award and a Tony® nomination, all as Best Actress. One of the most respected stage actresses in the U.S and England, McTeer won the 1997 Olivier, Tony®, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Award for Best Actress in a Play for her stunning portrayal of Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. That performance also marked her Broadway debut. Her prolific theater credits include the Broadway and West End runs of God of Carnage, The Duchess of Malfi, The Grace of Mary Traverse for The Royal Court Theatre and Uncle Vanya for the National Theater (both of which earned her Olivier Award nominations), Much Ado About Nothing in the West End and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the RSC. In 2000, McTeer received her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and won a Golden Globe Award, in director Gavin O’Connor’s Tumbleweeds. In 2012 she was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award® for her starring role opposite Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs. Recent film credits include MGM’s hit romantic drama Me Before You; actress Amber Tamblyn’s directorial debut Paint it Black, which McTeer also Executive Produced and which premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival; and opposite Lily James and Christopher Plummer in director David Leveaux’s The Exception. Additional film credits include Disney’s Maleficent, both Allegiant and Insurgent from the “Divergent” series, Angelica, Hannah Arendt, The Woman in Black, director Kenneth Branagh’s As You Like It and director Maggie Greenwald’s Songcatcher, For television, she starred opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and Stephen Rea in Hugo Blick’s 2014 Golden Globe-winning miniseries The Honourable Woman. McTeer received a Critic’s Choice nomination for that performance. The same year she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the BBC One and Starz Television mini-series The White Queen. In 2010, McTeer was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for her role as Clementine Churchill in Into the Storm, the HBO film on the life of Winston Churchill. Her additional television credits include the miniseries Five Days for the BBC and HBO, the miniseries Parades End with Benedict Cumberbatch, also for the BBC and HBO, and the acclaimed FX legal thriller, Damages. Janet McTeer was born in Newcastle, England. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and upon graduating she began her acting career on stage by joining the Royal Exchange Theatre. She was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.
THERESA REBECK (Playwright) is a prolific writer with success spanning theater, television, film, and literature. She has been named one of the 150 Fearless Women in the World by Newsweek and The New York Times has referred to her as “one of her generation’s major talents.” She is best known for her plays Seminar and Mauritius, which both premiered on Broadway, and her earlier works Spike Heels, Bad Dates and Omnium Gatherum, (Pulitzer Finalist, co-written with Alex Gersten) and her TV show Smash. Additional theater credits include: Way of the World (Folger Theatre); What We’re Up Against (Women’s Project); Downstairs (Dorset Theatre Festival); Dead Accounts (Music Box Theatre); The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, and The Family of Mann (Second Stage); Seared (San Francisco Playhouse); The Nest (Denver Center for the Performing Arts); The Way of the World (Dorset Theatre Festival); Poor Behavior (Mark Taper Forum, Primary Stages); The Butterfly Collection and Our House (Playwrights Horizons); The Understudy (Roundabout Theatre Company); and View of the Dome (New York Theatre Workshop). Upcoming projects: Seared at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Theresa and composer Josh Schmidt are adapting the RKO film Dance, Girl, Dance, as a stage musical, and she has created a stage adaptation of the fable Stone Soup with John Weidman. She is currently under commission by Roundabout Theater Company, La Jolla Playhouse and South Coast Rep. Theresa adapted and directed the film version of Poor Behavior and directed her original screenplay for Trouble, starring Anjelica Huston and Bill Pullman, which premiered at the 2017 Seattle Film Festival. Other films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent features Sunday on the Rocks and Seducing Charlie Barker, an adaptation of her play, The Scene. In addition to Smash, Ms. Rebeck has writing and producing credits for television projects including Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, Third Watch, Canterbury’s Law, Smith, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue. All of Ms. Rebeck’s past produced plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Volumes I, II III, and IV and are available from Samuel French or Playscripts. Ms. Rebeck’s other publications are Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. She has written for American Theatre Magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review. Ms. Rebeck’s first two novels, Three Girls and Their Brother and Twelve Rooms With A View, are published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in April 2008. Her most recent book, I’m Glad About You, was released to rave reviews at the top of 2016 and is published by Putnam. Theresa has been honored to receive the National Theatre Conference Award, the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award, PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, the Athena Film Festival Award, an Alex Award, a Lilly Award, an IRNE Award for Best New Play, an Eliot Norton Award, the Mystery Writer’s of America’s Edgar Award, the Writer’s Guild of America award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody.Ms. Rebeck is originally from Cincinnati and holds an MFA in Playwriting and a PhD. in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University. She is a proud board member of PEN America and the Dramatists Guild, a Contributing Editor to the Harvard Review, an Associate Artist of the Roundabout Theatre Company, a Playwright Adviser and Board Member of the LARK, and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University. She is currently holds the Lyndall Finley Wortham Chair in the Performing Arts at University of Houston. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children
MORITZ VON STUELPNAGEL (Director). Broadway: Noël Coward's Present Laughter with Kevin Kline (three Tony nominations including Best Revival of a Play); Rob Askins' Hand to God (five Tony nominations including Best New Play and Best Director, Lortel Award nomination, SDC Callaway nomination). West End: Hand to God (Olivier nomination for Best New Comedy). Off-Broadway: Important Hats of the Twentieth Century (Manhattan Theatre Club); Verité (Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3); Teenage Dick (The Public Theater); Trevor (Lesser America); Love Song of the Albanian Sous Chef (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Bike America (Ma-Yi); MEL & EL: Show & Tell (Ars Nova); Spacebar (Studio 42); and My Base and Scurvy Heart (Studio 42). Regional: Alliance Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and more. Moritz is the former artistic director of Studio 42, NYC’s producer of “unproducible” plays. moritzvs.com
Roundabout Theatre Company celebrates the power of theatre by spotlighting classics from the past, cultivating new works of the present, and educating minds for the future. A not-for-profit company, Roundabout fulfills that mission by producing familiar and lesser-known plays and musicals; discovering and supporting talented playwrights; reducing the barriers that can inhibit theatergoing; collaborating with a diverse team of artists; building educational experiences; and archiving over five decades of production history.
Roundabout Theatre Company presents a variety of plays, musicals and new works on its five stages: Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre, Studio 54 and Stephen Sondheim Theatre, and Off-Broadway’s Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre.
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 2017-2018 Broadway season concludes with Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, directed by Patrick Marber, starring Tom Hollander.
Roundabout’s Off-Broadway season dedicated to new work at the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre in 2017-2018 includes Amy and the Orphans by Lindsey Ferrentino, directed by Scott Ellis; Skintight by Joshua Harmon, directed by Daniel Aukin; and Bobbie Clearly by Alex Lubischer, directed by Will Davis at the Roundabout Underground.
In 2018-2019, Roundabout’s Broadway season will present Bernhardt/Hamlet, a new play by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, starring Janet McTeer; True West by Sam Shepard, directed by James Macdonald, starring Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano; and Kiss Me, Kate, directed by Scott Ellis, starring Kelli O’Hara.
Off-Broadway in 2018-2019, Roundabout will produce Apologia by Alexi Kaye Campbell, directed by Daniel Aukin, with Stockard Channing; Toni Stone by Lydia R. Diamond, directed by Pam MacKinnon, with Uzo Aduba; and Usual Girls by Ming Peiffer, directed by Tyne Rafaeli at Roundabout Underground.
www.roundabouttheatre.org
Follow ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY on Twitter @RTC_NYC, Instagram and on Facebook.
# # #
