The National Theatre's long-awaited production of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Glenn Close as Blanche DuBois, begins previews on Sept. 28. Opening night is Oct. 8 for a run through Nov. 23.

Glenn Close will appear opposite Iain Glen (who had the pleasure of appearing on a London stage with another leading Hollywood star, Nicole Kidman, in The Blue Room at the Donmar) as Stanley Kowalski, Blanche's brutish brother-in-law.

Since becoming a film star, Close has made occasional appearances on Broadway, typically winning a Tony for her trouble. Her breakout role in the musical Barnum was followed by turns in The Real Thing, Benefactors, Death and the Maiden and Sunset Boulevard. For a while, she was rumored to be starring in a new production of A Little Night Music, but the production never matialized.

Close's work as Norma Desmond in Sunset earned the actress her third Tony Award. She also garnered Tonys for her roles in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden. An Emmy Award winner for her performance in "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer," the Connecticut-born actress has been nominated for the Academy Award five times — "The World According to Garp" (1982), "The Big Chill" (1983), "The Natural" (1984), "Fatal Attraction" (1987) and "Dangerous Liaisons" (1988) — although she has yet to nab the prize.

Williams' classic concerns the collision between the fragile world of false gentility and manners as embodied by the mentally unstable faded Southern Belle Blanche, and the practical but brutishly crude world personified by the primitive, animalistic Stanley. Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando created the roles on Broadway. —By Robert Simonson
and Paul Webb