Julia Roberts will return to Broadway early next year in an all-star production of “Small Mouth Sounds,” an experimental, moving and funny play about a silent retreat.
The production will reunite Roberts with Paul Rudd, who co-starred in her one previous Broadway outing, a 2006 production of “Three Days of Rain.” They will be joined in “Small Mouth Sounds” by Martin Freeman, Greta Lee, Sarah Paulson and Isaac Powell.
The 2015 play, which was written by Bess Wohl, will be directed by Joe Mantello and produced by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller, who won Tony Awards this year for the successful Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman.” Mantello, Rudin and Diller will also team up this fall for a Broadway production of “Downstate,” a provocative 2018 tragicomedy by Bruce Norris, set at a group home for sex offenders.
Both playwrights have won Pulitzer Prizes for other works, and both plays are critically acclaimed but commercially challenging — “Small Mouth Sounds” because it features stretches of discomforting silence, and “Downstate” because it is about a group of potentially unsympathetic characters. “If it’s not challenging, what’s the point?” Rudin said.
Rudin’s expectation is that demand for “Small Mouth Sounds” will be high, given the celebrity of the cast, and he is hoping to leverage that interest to bolster “Downstate,” which will likely be a tougher sell. He is trying an unorthodox marketing move: On Thursday, when tickets for “Downstate” go on sale starting at $150, those who purchase the first 15 percent of the seats will qualify to buy a prime seat at “Small Mouth Sounds” for $250.
Those prices are not bargain basement, but Rudin said he believes they are far lower than they will be for “Small Mouth Sounds” over time. “The price points for plays are incredibly high now,” he said, “and have to be high because of the economics.”
“We’re going to have to come up with a better way to get people into these buildings,” he added, crediting the Shubert Organization for agreeing to test the dual ticketing strategy.
“Downstate” is scheduled to begin previews Oct. 17 and to open Nov. 15 for a 12-week run at the Booth Theater. “Small Mouth Sounds” is planning to begin previews Feb. 18 and to open March 18 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.
The productions are another step in Rudin’s return to active producing after a self-imposed absence prompted by media coverage of his bullying behavior. Rudin said Diller, the billionaire media mogul who has been a longtime champion of his work, would also be the sole investor in the productions.
“Downstate” began its life at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago, directed by Pam MacKinnon; Jesse Green, reviewing that production for The New York Times, called it “a great, squirmy moral-thrill-ride of a play.”
The Broadway production will feature two members of the original cast, Francis Guinan and K. Todd Freeman, along with Cassie Beck, Adrian Martinez, Al’Jaleel McGhee, Thomas Sadoski, Ivy Wolk, and Liza Colón-Zayas.
Norris won the drama Pulitzer in 2011, and the best play Tony Award in 2012, for “Clybourne Park.” He was also a onetime target of Rudin’s ire — the two had a public rift over Norris’s decision not to act in a Rudin-produced television adaptation of “The Corrections,” which led to Rudin refusing to produce the Broadway run of “Clybourne Park.” They have since reconciled.
“Small Mouth Sounds” had an initial production at Ars Nova, an Off Broadway company in New York, directed by Rachel Chavkin. Charles Isherwood, reviewing that production for The New York Times, called the play “enchanting” and “a model of ingenuity.”
This year, Wohl won both the drama Pulitzer and the best play Tony Award for “Liberation,” about the women’s movement.
The Broadway production of “Small Mouth Sounds” will feature music by Caroline Shaw, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who also wrote music for this year’s “Death of a Salesman” revival.
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