By Ernio Hernandez
23 Jul 2004

Kim Cattrall
photo by Aubrey Reuben

"Sex and the City" star Kim Cattrall will headline in a Sir Peter Hall staging of Brian Clark’s update of his play Whose Life is it Anyway? at London's Duke of York’s Theatre in the new year.

Presented by Sonia Friedman Productions and Mark Rubinstein, the work is slated to begin Jan. 7, 2005 and officially open Jan. 25, 2005, for a 16-week run through April 30, 2005.

In Whose Life is it Anyway?, Clark the story of a sculptor who finds herself at a loss of control when an accident forces her to face an uncertain future. The play delves into issues of medical and moral consequences, whether we have the right to choose when we want to die.

The play, Clark's first major work, was originally produced for television. The stage version made its debut at London's Mermaid Theatre in 1978 and won the Society of West End Theatre’s Best Play Award and the Evening Standard’s Most Promising Playwright Award. The original production, which made it to Broadway, cast a male lead in Tom Conti. Clark revisited the work, turning the lead role into a female and in 1979, the play opened anew on Broadway with Mary Tyler Moore in a Tony Award winning performance. The play was then adapted into the 1981 film starring Richard Dreyfuss.

With the advent of major technological advances in medical treatment, Clark once again revisits the play, revising it for a contemporary audience.

Kattrall, known for her turn as Samantha Jones on the HBO's "Sex and the City," made her Broadway debut opposite Ian McKellen in the National Theatre’s staging of Michael Frayn's adaptation of Chekhov's Wild Honey in 1986. The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and American Academy of Dramatic Arts-trained actress has also appeared on stage in A View From The Bridge, Three Sisters, Miss Julie and The Misanthrope. Other credits include the television version of The Heidi Chronicles, and such films as "Mannequin," "Police Academy 1," "Masquerade," "Big Trouble in Little China" and "Bonfire of the Vanities."

For tickets to Whose Life is it Anyway? at the Duke of York’s Theatre, on St Martin's Lane in London, call the box office at (870) 060-6623.