This new version of Schiller's 1800 play about the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I (Walter) and Mary Queen of Scots (McTeer) is penned by Peter Oswald and directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!). The praised production was sold out at the Donmar Warehouse in 2005 and moved to London's West End.
Mary Stuart will be produced on Broadway by Arielle Tepper Madover and Debra Black, and will play a Shubert venue to be announced. This is the first Broadway production of Mary Stuart in almost 40 years.
Further casting, other members of the creative team and ticket information will also be announced soon.
McTeer will be making her first Broadway appearance since her Tony Award-winning performance in A Doll's House in 1997. Walter made her Broadway debut in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1983 production of All's Well That Ends Well. For Mary Stuart, she won the 2005 Evening Standard Award for Best Actress.
Michael Grandage, artistic director of the Donmar, said in a statement, "I am thrilled we are bringing our work to Broadway again. After the success of Frost/Nixon last year, I am particularly delighted that American audiences will now get to experience one of the Donmar's great classical productions. Phyllida Lloyd's magnificent account of this historical drama acts out like a modern day political thriller and offers audiences a chance to engage with two towering performances." According to production notes, "For a Queen to stand, a Queen must fall. Written by Friedrich Schiller in 1800, Mary Stuart is a thrilling account of the extraordinary relationship between England's Elizabeth I (Harriet Walter) and her rival cousin, Mary Queen of Scots (Janet McTeer)." Mary was beheaded for treason.
The Donmar Warehouse production of Mary Stuart transferred into London's West End where it was produced by Arielle Tepper Madover, ACT Productions, Neal Street Productions & Matthew Byam Shaw. It ran July 14-Sept. 3, 2005 at the Donmar Warehouse and later transferred to the Apollo in London's West End, where it played Oct. 7, 2005-Jan. 14, 2006.
German playwright Schiller (1759–1805) wrote The Robbers (1782), Intrigue and Love (1784), Don Carlos (1787), Wallenstein's Camp (1798), The Piccolomini (1799), Wallenstein's Death (1799), Mary Stuart (1800), Maid of Orleans (1801) and William Tell (1804).
Playwright Oswald (credited with the "new version") wrote the plays The Swansong of Ivanhoe Wasteway, Allbright, Valdorama, Augustine's Oak and The Golden Ass; and translations include Schiller's Don Carlos, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos, Racine's Phaedra, Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, Lorca's Dona Rosita The Spinster and a stage adaptation of the Sanskrit epic The Ramayana.
Lloyd's previous work for the Donmar includes her award-winning production of Boston Marriage in 2001 and The Threepenny Opera in 1994. She most recently directed Wild East for the Royal Court where she has also directed Six Degrees of Separation and Hysteria. Other credits include The Way of the World, Pericles, What the Butler Saw, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Duchess of Malfi (NT). She directed the international sensation Mamma Mia! (West End, Broadway and worldwide).
Also an acclaimed opera director, Lloyd has worked with Opera North and the ENO. For film, she directed "Mamma Mia!," which opens worldwide this month.
