The 15-week engagement will officially open March 9 and continue to May 24. Tickets will be available Dec. 10-25 through an exclusive arrangement with American Express. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Dec. 26.
33 Variations tells the story of Katherine Brandt (Jane Fonda), a woman racing against time to solve the riddle of a composer's 200-year-old obsession," according to production notes. "As she faces her daughter, her past and Beethoven himself Katherine must struggle to embrace the legacy of her own life."
Internationally known Oscar and Emmy Award winner Fonda ("Klute," "Coming Home," "The Dollmaker," "The China Syndrome," "On Golden Pond" and many more) made her Broadway debut in the 1960 play There Was a Little Girl, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress. Her last appearance on Broadway was in the 1963 drama Strange Interlude. 33 Variations marks her return to Broadway after 46 years.
Kaufman, lauded for The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, wrote and will direct the play. This marks his Broadway debut as a playwright; he directed the Tony Award-winning I Am My Own Wife, for which he was nominated for Best Direction. He is the artistic director of Tectonic Theatre Project, Kaufman.
Kaufman also directed the film adaptation of The Laramie Project for HBO. It earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Writer. 33 Variations was developed in association with Arena Stage and played pre-Broadway tryouts at Arena Stage and the La Jolla Playhouse.
Additional cast and design team will be announced shortly.
David Binder (A Raisin in the Sun) presents the Tectonic Theatre Project's production of 33 Variations. Tectonic Theater Project is the award winning non-profit theatre company behind such plays as The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency, as well as nationally recognized arts education programs in high schools and universities around the country.
Tickets for 33 Variations will be available by visiting Telecharge.com, calling (212) 239-6200 and at the box office of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre (230 West 49th Street).
The performance schedule is Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM with a Wednesday and Saturday matinee at 2 PM and Sunday matinee at 3 PM. There will be a performance on Monday, Feb. 9, 2009 at 8 PM; there will not be a performance on Feb. 11 at 2 PM, Feb. 15 and March 10, 2009.
Tuesdays at 7 PM begin on March 17, 2009.
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Fonda was born in New York City in 1937, the daughter of Henry Fonda and Frances Seymour Fonda. She attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, NY, and Vassar College. In her late teens, Fonda studied with renowned acting coach Lee Strasberg and became a member of the Actors Studio in New York. Her subsequent work on stage and screen earned numerous nominations and awards, including Oscars (Best Actress in 1971 for "Klute" and in 1978 for "Coming Home") and an Emmy for her performance in "The Dollmaker." Along with starring roles in dozens of highly acclaimed productions, Fonda also took on responsibilities as a film and television producer. Her credits include "Coming Home," "The China Syndrome," "Nine to Five," "Rollover," "On Golden Pond," "The Morning After" and "The Dollmaker."
Fonda now focuses much of her time on activism and social change — with much of her work devoted to the program she founded in 1995, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP). Fonda chairs this statewide effort to reduce the high rates of adolescent pregnancy in Georgia through community, youth and family development, training of professionals who work with adolescents, and legislative advocacy. Fonda has long been known for activism and advocacy on environmental issues, human rights, and the empowerment of women and girls. In 2000, Fonda traveled to Nigeria and produced a film, in collaboration with the International Women's Health Coalition, entitled "Generation 2000: Changing Girls' Realities."
Fonda is a member of the Women & Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations; the board of Women’s Media Center, which she co-founded in 2004; and she sits on the board of V-Day: Until The Violence Stops, a global effort to stop violence against women begun in 1998 by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. At the Emory School of Medicine, Fonda established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health which engages in research, curriculum development and trainings that broaden understanding of adolescent development and reproductive health and enhance service delivery to children, youth and families. In addition, Fonda's gift has endowed a faculty chair in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Emory University School of Medicine named the Marion Howard Chair in Adolescent Reproductive Health.
In 1994, Fonda was named Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.
Producer Binder produced the first Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry's classic A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad and Sanaa Lathan. His producing credits include John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's rock 'n' roll musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, De La Guarda, Lisa Kron's 2.5 Minute Ride (New York and San Francisco), and Kenny Lonergan's Lobby Hero (with the Donmar in the West End) and the current Fuerza Bruta.
