Leslye Headland, creator of the new Disney+ series Star Wars: The Acolyte, will make her Broadway debut this fall with the Second Stage Theater production of her play Cult of Love. Trip Cullman (Lobby Hero, Choir Boy) will direct.
Headland’s play, making its New York premiere, begins performances at the Hayes Theater on Wednesday, November 20, with opening night set for Thursday, December 12.
Cult of Love will be part of the 46th anniversary season of Second Stage, which just won the Tony Award for Best Revival/Play for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate.
The company also announced today that its upcoming Off Broadway slate will include the New York premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies’ Lunar Eclipse, directed by Kate Whoriskey and starring Reed Birney and Lisa Emery.
Previews of Lunar Eclipse begin Wednesday, October 9, at the Tony Kiser Theater, with opening night on Wednesday, October 30.
Additional casting and full creative teams will be announced at a later date, as will additional productions.
Headland serves as writer, director, executive producer, and showrunner for The Acolyte, and was writer, producing director and showrunner for Netflix’s Russian Doll.
Cult of Love will mark her return to Second Stage, which produced her Off Broadway plays Bachelorette in its Uptown Series and The Layover (directed by Cullman) at the Kiser Theater. Her film directorial debut was an adaptation of Bachelorette starring Kirsten Dunst, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.
Headland’s other credits include the Freeform series Single Drunk Female, Terriers (FX), Heathers (Paramount) and the 2014 feature film remake of About Last Night starring Kevin Hart. She also wrote and directed 2015’s Sleeping with Other People starring Jason Sudeikis.
The official synopsis for Cult of Love: “It’s the holiday season for the Dahl family! The four adult children return to their childhood home with partners in tow. The Dahl traditions include singing carols in harmony at the drop of a hat, but the gathering is anything but harmonious. Old conflicts resurface, new issues battled, and dinner is taking absolutely forever to be served. Will the love the Dahls have for each other be enough to get them through, or will this be their last Christmas together?”
Margulies’ Lunar Eclipse is described by Second Stage as “a stirring new play about the fragility of memory and the passage of time.”
The synopsis: “Late on a summer night, in a field on their Kentucky farm, a long-married couple, George (Birney) and Em (Emery), have come to watch a lunar eclipse. As the seven stages of the celestial phenomenon unfold, the two sip bourbon and reflect on land and legacy, and children and dogs. But as more and more is revealed, they realize they are as much a mystery to each other as the heavens above. Lunar Eclipse is the funny, moving, universal story of a couple reckoning with the time they’ve spent on earth and the time they have left.”
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