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My So-Called Lady: Claire Danes to Play Eliza Doolittle in Broadway's Pygmalion
By Ernio Hernandez
10 Jul 2007
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Claire Danes will star in Roundabout's revival of Pygmalion.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | Claire Danes will make her Broadway debut as Eliza Doolittle in the upcoming Roundabout Theatre Company revival of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, according to a press statement.
David Grindley (Journey's End) will direct the new Broadway staging, which is slated to start previews Sept. 14 and open Oct. 18 at the American Airlines Theatre for a limited run through Dec. 16.
Danes — who is known for her screen work in "William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet," "Stage Beauty," "Little Women," "Les Misérables" and the television series "My So-Called Life" — has yet to grace the Broadway stage. In recent years, though, she has appeared at P.S. 122 in the dance pieces Edith & Jenny and Christina Olson: American Model as well as in Off-Broadway's The Vagina Monologues.
Other film credits include "Shopgirl," "The Family Stone," "Igby Goes Down," "The Rainmaker," "U-Turn," "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday," "How to Make an American Quilt" and "Home for the Holidays." Danes can currently be seen on screen in "Evening."
Danes joins the previously announced star Jefferson Mays, who will play Henry Higgins. May's recent Journey's End co-star, Boyd Gaines, has been mentioned to also be part of the cast, but has not yet been officially announced. Further casting will be announced shortly.
Well-known as the inspiration for the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical My Fair Lady, the Shaw drama based on the classical myth finds "Professor Henry Higgins (Mays) [who] comes across a poor and uneducated Cockney girl named Eliza Doolittle... [and] makes a bet that he can take Eliza from the gutters of London and pass her off as a society lady, by simply teaching her the right dialect in which to speak," as show notes explain.
The design team will feature Jonathan Fensom (sets and costumes), Jason Taylor (lights), Gregory Clarke (sound) and Majella Hurley (dialect coach).
Roundabout continues its association with works of Shaw following last season's Heartbreak House. Previous productions also include Major Barbara (2000-2001), Arms and the Man (1999-2000), You Never Can Tell (1997 1998) and Misalliance (1996-1997).
Pygmalion first hit the Broadway stage in 1914 at the Park Theatre and has been revived on Broadway four times since. The most recent (in 1987) starred Peter O'Toole as Higgins and Amanda Plummer as Doolittle.
Tickets to Pygmalion at the American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, will go on sale in August through Roundabout Ticket Services at (212) 719-1300. For more information, visit roundabouttheatre.org.
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