Harris and Harrison to Star in Guthrie Glass Menagerie | Playbill

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News Harris and Harrison to Star in Guthrie Glass Menagerie Tony Award winner Harriet Harris — of Thoroughly Modern Millie and "Desperate Housewives" fame — will join "Queer as Folk" star Randy Harrison for the Guthrie Theater's upcoming production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.
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Harriet Harris

Joe Dowling will direct the production, which will feature Harris — a Guthrie company member in the eighties — as Amanda Wingfield and Harrison as Young Tom Wingfield. The company will also include Jonas Goslow as Jim O'Connor, Tracey Maloney as Laura Wingfield and Bill McCallum as Older Tom Wingfield. Previews are scheduled to begin Jan. 20, 2007, and the limited engagement will play through March 25 on the Guthrie's McGuire Proscenium Stage.

The Glass Menagerie, according to press notes, "glimpses the Wingfield family's struggle to hold its ground in 1939 St. Louis. Amanda, the matriarch of the family, is trying to maintain her dignity and provide for the future in the midst of the Great Depression. Her son Tom denies his own dreams to become the reluctant breadwinner after his father ran out on the family while his frail sister Laura has retreated to a homebound life where she finds comfort caring for her collection of little glass animals. The arrival of Jim, a 'gentleman caller,' at the Wingfield residence could be a sign of hope or a disturbance that will shatter their fragile home."

The Glass Menagerie premiered on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre in 1945. Directed by Eddie Dowling and Margo Jones, the original production featured Laurette Taylor as Amanda, Eddie Dowling as Tom, Julie Haydon as Laura and Anthony Ross as Jim. The most recent Broadway production cast Jessica Lange as Amanda.

Harriet Harris, who has played a recurring role on the hit ABC series "Desperate Housewives," received Tony and Drama Desk awards for her performance as Mrs. Meers in the Tony-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has also been seen on the New York stage in The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Crucible, Man and Superman, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Jeffrey and Bella, Belle of Byelorussia. Harris received Drama Desk nominations for her work in Jeffrey and Bella and has appeared on screen in "It's All Relative," "Memento," "Nurse Betty," "Romeo and Juliet," "Quiz Show," "Six Feet Under," "Frasier" and "The Beast. She was also seen in the Kennedy Center’s production of Jerry Herman’s Mame.

Randy Harrison, who received his BFA in theatre from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, made his Broadway debut in Wicked and his Off-Broadway debut in the MCC production of A Letter from Ethel Kennedy. He also starred in the International Fringe Festival production of Deviant, and his other theatrical credits include Equus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shopping and Fucking, Violet, Hello Again, Children of Eden and 1776. Harrison played Justin, a gay artist, in Showtime's "Queer as Folk" series. The Guthrie Theater is located in Minneapolis at 818 South 2nd Street. For more information visit www.guthrietheater.org.

 
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