Repeating roles they created at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Kate Burton, Michael Emerson, David Lansbury and Harris Yulin will star in the Huntington Theatre Company production of Ibsen's classic, Hedda Gabler. They will play Hedda, Tesman, Lovborg and Judge Brack, respectively. The show begins previews Dec. 29 and runs through Jan. 28, 2001 with an opening on Jan. 3.

Burton was last seen on the New York stage in Brian Friel's Give Me Your Answer, Do!. Emerson has become a mainstay in New York theatre in recent years, emerging in the title role in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, and going on to co-star in Give Me Your Answer, Do! and The Iceman Cometh. Lansbury's credits include Hapgood at Lincoln Center Theater. Yulin (The Diary of Anne Frank), a veteran with over 40 years experience, last appeared on Broadway in The Price..

Burton will reprise the title role of Hedda, having performed it this summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, as well as the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Also in the Boston cast are Jennifer Van Dyck (the Huntington's recent hit production of Dead End) and Maria Cellario. Nicholas Martin directs.

For weeks, plans have been afoot to transfer the production to Broadway. Producer Randall L. Wreghitt told Playbill On-Line (Dec. 15) that even if a Broadway theatre logjam bars Hedda from New York in the spring, "Both Kate [Burton] and I want to do it. No matter what. It's not a `summer show,' but we'll wait for a theatre because we want to bring it in."

Seeking a measure of happiness that Ibsen himself said the title character "cannot discover," despite many chances to do so, Hedda Gabler will go to any lengths to escape from a stifling everyday routine and to get past her marriage to Tesman, a mediocre and self-satisfied scholar. For Hedda Gabler, tickets range from $12-$55. For tickets or information call the Huntington box office at (617) 266-0800 or visit www.huntingtontheatre.org.