Noël Coward's Brief Encounter Will Begin Broadway Run Sept. 10

By Kenneth Jones
07 Jun 2010

Director-adaptor Emma Rice
Director-adaptor Emma Rice
Photo by Kneehigh Theatre

Roundabout Theatre Company confirmed on June 7 that it will be presenting the acclaimed Kneehigh Theatre production of Noël Coward's Brief Encounter — an event that mixes romantic melodrama, music and film projections — at Broadway's Studio 54 starting in September.

Roundabout will produce in association with David Pugh & Dafydd Rogers and Cineworld. The production, inspired by a Coward one-act called Still Life and the later David Lean film version, called "Brief Encounter," is adapted and directed by Emma Rice for the U.K. group Kneehigh Theatre.

Following a successful 2009-10 U.S. tour of the show to not-for-profit venues including St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, the new fall staging on Broadway begins Sept. 10 toward an opening of Sept. 28. Rehearsals begin in the U.K.

This will be a limited engagement through Dec. 5.

Roundabout bills it this way: "Brief Encounter is an imaginative new work that combines elements of Noël Coward's beloved screenplay, and the one-act play on which it was based, with song, dance and Technicolor displays of emotion."

The cast will be announced shortly. Read the earlier Playbill.com interview with director Emma Rice. The design team includes Neil Murray (sets and costumes), Malcolm Rippeth (lights), Simon Baker (sound) and Gemma Carrington & Jon Driscoll (projection).

Brief Encounter will play Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM with a Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinee at 2 PM.

Single tickets for Brief Encounter will be available to the general public in the summer. Subscribers get first crack at them. Visit www.roundabouttheatre.org.