Two-time Academy Award winner Wiest ("Bullets Over Broaday," "Hannah and Her Sisters") will play Irina Arkadina, and Tony Award winner Alan Cumming (Cabaret) will be Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin in the Russian masterpiece about creative people and their egos, appetites — and their selfishness.
Joining Wiest and Cumming are Kelli Garner (Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya), Ryan O'Nan (Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev), Annette O'Toole (Paulina Andryevna), David Rasche (Yevgeny Sergeyevich Dorn), John Christopher Jones (Pyotr Nikolayevich Sorin), Bill Christ (Ilya Shamrayev), Ryan Homchick (Yakov), Greg Keller (Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko) and Marjan Neshat (Masha).
The production will be directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev, with sets by Tony Award winner Santo Loquasto, costumes by Suzy Benzinger, lighting by Tony Award winner Brian MacDevitt and hair design by Paul Huntley. The translation is by Paul Schmidt.
"Written in 1896, The Seagull is widely regarded as Chekhov's first masterpiece, subtly dissecting the affairs of the heart and the demands of a life in the arts, while balancing the comic, the lyric and the tragic in a manner that has become the hallmark of his work," according to CSC.
Performances begin Feb. 20 at CSC's home at 136 E. 13th Street. The official opening is March 13, for a run through March 30. Garner appeared Off-Broadway in Dog Sees God at the Century Center. Her film roles include "Lars and the Real Girl," "The Aviator" and "Love, Liza," among others.
O'Toole has appeared in such films as "Cat People," "One On One," "48 Hours" opposite Nick Nolte and "Superman III," and was Martha Kent on the TV series "Smallville." For HBO, she appeared in "Vanities."
Rasche is a New York stage veteran whose credits include Broadway's Speed the Plow, Lunch Hour, Loose Ends, Shadow Box and Getting and Spending and Off-Broadway's Edmond at the Atlantic, Moonlight and Magnolias and Regrets Only at Manhattan Theatre Club, and The Country Girl at the Roundabout, among many others.
Jones' New York theatre credits include Otherwise Engaged, Hurlyburly, Democracy, The Iceman Cometh, Engaged and Golden Child, among others.
The Seagull will be performed Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 2 and 8 PM and Sundays at 3 PM. For tickets and information visit www.classicstage.org or call (866) 811-4111, or (212) 352-3101, or visit the CSC box office at 136 East 13th Street.
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CSC's current production of David Ives' New Jerusalem, directed by Walter Bobbie, starring Tony Award winner Richard Easton, Fyvush Finkel, David Garrison and Jeremy Strong, opened Jan. 13 for a limited engagement through Feb. 10.
