Pullman and Stiles to Star in L.A. Oleanna, Replacing Vanya at Taper | Playbill

Related Articles
News Pullman and Stiles to Star in L.A. Oleanna, Replacing Vanya at Taper Mark Taper Theatre's current season will feature Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles in David Mamet's Oleanna, Center Theatre Group artistic director Michael Ritchie announced.

//assets.playbill.com/editorial/999e5eeab20d7550fd8af304a986f01e-peterandjerryprod201.jpg
Bill Pullman in Peter and Jerry. Photo by Joan Marcus

Mark Taper Theatre's current season will feature Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles in David Mamet's Oleanna, Center Theatre Group artistic director Michael Ritchie announced.The provocative two-actor drama about a professor and a female student replaces a production of Uncle Vanya, and will run May 28-July 12. Opening is June 5.

Oleanna is presented at the Taper in association with Jeffrey Finn, who produced the recent Tony-nominated revival of On Golden Pond starring James Earl Jones, and is one of the producers of Broadway's upcoming Blithe Spirit. Finn would be attached to any potential future life of the production.

Tony Award winner Doug Hughes (Doubt) will direct "the gripping account of a power struggle between a male university professor and one of his female students."

"We are happy to welcome Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles to the Taper, especially in Oleanna, a play that is almost incendiary in its dramatic punch. David Mamet really provokes arguments with this play. It will be especially fun after the performances to stand in the Taper lobby and listen to the conversations."

Uncle Vanya was cancelled because "the casting we anticipated for this production did not come together as we had planned," said Ritchie. Pullman is known for his roles in the films "Independence Day," "Lost Highway," "Sleepless in Seattle," "Ruthless People," "While You Were Sleeping" and the recent "Bottle Shock" and "Noble Son." On stage Pullman received a 2002 Drama Desk Award nomination when he starred opposite Mercedes Ruehl in Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? on Broadway, and a second Drama Desk nomination for his appearance in Albee's Peter and Jerry in 2007 at Second Stage in New York. He was also nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for the 2006 Kennedy Center production of The Subject Was Roses, which was produced by Jeffrey Finn.

Stiles earned rave reviews in a previous production of Oleanna in London's West End in 2004. Her stage credits include the 2002 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night as Viola, James Lapine's Fran's Bed at Playwrights Horizons and The Vagina Monologues. She made her movie debut at age 15 in "I Love You, I Love You Not," and followed "10 Things I Hate About You," "Save the Last Dance," "Mona Lisa Smile," and two David Mamet films "State and Main" and "Edmond," plus the three Bourne movies — "The Bourne Identity," "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Bourne Ultimatum."

Pulitzer Prize winner Mamet is currently represented on Broadway by Speed-the-Plow. He penned Glengarry Glen Ross (1984 Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle Award, 2005 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play), American Buffalo, Boston Marriage, November and many other plays.

Tickets for Oleanna will go on sale Feb. 27 and can be purchased by calling CTG Audience Services at (213) 628-2772 or online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org or in person at the CTG box office located at the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center.

Center Theatre Group (CTG), a non-profit organization, operates the Kirk Douglas, Ahmanson and Mark Taper venues in Los Angeles.

 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!