Directed by Michael Wilson, the production continues a limited run to April 28. Tony nominee Burstein (Broadway's Follies, Lincoln Center Theater's recent Golden Boy) plays Matt Friedman. Paulson (Broadway's Collected Stories) plays Sally Talley.
Talley's Folly, according to the Roundabout, is a "funny and heart-warming play about finding love when you've nearly given up looking. At the end of World War II, Matt Friedman, a Jewish immigrant who has spent his life keeping others at a distance, returns to the small town where he first met Sally Talley. Nothing like her conservative Protestant family and neighbors, Sally is a nurse with deep misgivings about the country's future. After a lifetime of believing they'll never truly belong in the world around them, Matt has worked up the courage to ask Sally for her hand, and convince her that they do belong — together."
The character of Sally, as an older woman, also appears in Wilson's play Fifth of July. The plays are part of Wilson's so-called "Talley Trilogy," which also includes Talley and Son.
The design team includes Jeff Cowie (sets), David Woolard (costumes) and Rui Rita (lights). For RTC, Wilson directed Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore at the Laura Pels Theatre in 2011 and Old Acquaintance at the American Airlines Theatre in 2007. Burstein was last seen on the Roundabout stage in the 1996 Tony Award-nominated revival of Company as Paul, and Paulson last appeared at Roundabout in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart as Meg Magrath.
Talley's Folly premiered in 1979 Off-Broadway at Circle Repertory Theatre and moved to Broadway in 1980. Lanford Wilson received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The late American playwright Wilson, who died in 2011, also wrote Balm in Gilead, The Rimers of Eldritch, The Gingham Dog, Lemon Sky, Serenading Louie, The Hot L Baltimore, The Mound Builders, Angels Fall, Burn This, Redwood Curtain, Trinity, Book of Days, Rain Dance, Sympathetic Magic, A Sense of Place, and many one-act plays. He also wrote the libretto for Lee Hoiby's opera of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke and a new translation of Chekhov's Three Sisters. He was a founder (with Tanya Berezin, Rob Thirkield and Marshall W. Mason) of The Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was a resident playwright there from 1969 to 1995.
Talley's Folly show times are Tuesday-Saturday at 7:30 PM, with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 PM. The Pels is within the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46th Street.
For tickets and information, call (212) 719-1300 or visit roundabouttheatre.org.
