Julia Louis-Dreyfus will make her Broadway debut this fall, alongside the Broadway veterans Ed Harris, Allison Janney and Lily Rabe, in a revival of the family drama “Other Desert Cities.” Joe Keery (“Stranger Things”) will also make his Broadway debut in the production.
The play, written by Jon Robin Baitz and set in Palm Springs, Calif., is about a Christmas gathering rocked by a daughter’s plan to write a memoir that explores a family trauma. John Benjamin Hickey will direct the revival, which is planned for a 16-week run at the Hudson Theater; previews will start on Sept. 29 and opening night is set for Oct. 18.
The play was staged Off Broadway in early 2011 at Lincoln Center Theater, and then transferred to Broadway later that year. The critic Ben Brantley, reviewing the Broadway production for The New York Times, praised the show, saying, “all family reunions should be this satisfying,” and describing it as “built with gleaming dialogue, tantalizing hints of a dangerous mystery and a structural care that brings to mind the heyday of Lillian Hellman.”
“Other Desert Cities” was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for drama; the Pulitzer board called it “a taut, witty drama.” It also received a Tony nomination in 2012 for best play.
Louis-Dreyfus, who has won 11 Emmy Awards, can currently be heard in cinemas as the voice of the smartest sheep in the flock in “The Sheep Detectives.” In “Other Desert Cities” she will play the family matriarch, Polly Wyeth, a role that Stockard Channing originally played on Broadway. Her husband, Lyman, will be played by Harris, and her sister, Silda, will be played by Janney (that role was played on Broadway by Judith Light, who won a Tony Award). Rabe and Keery will play the Wyeths’ adult children.
The lead producers are ATG Productions (ATG Entertainment operates the Hudson), Bad Robot Live (J.J. Abrams), and Gavin Kalin Productions.
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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