New Group Season to Feature Broderick, Lonergan, Hawke, Shepard and Savage

By Andrew Gans
May 18, 2009

Initial details about the New Group's 2009-2010 Off-Broadway season have been announced.

The New York Times reports that Tony Award winner Matthew Broderick, currently back on Broadway in the revival of The Philanthropist, will star in Kenneth Lonergan's The Starry Messenger. The play had previously been announced for Manhattan Theater Club's 2007-2008 season but was canceled due to "scheduling conflicts."

Lonergan, the playwright lauded for The Waverly Gallery, This Is Our Youth and Lobby Hero, is the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of "You Can Count on Me."

In The Starry Messenger, according to previous MTC notes, "Mark (Broderick) works at the Hayden Planetarium, teaching Upper West Siders about the mysteries of the galaxy. But when this forty-something married man meets a pretty young single mother, his own solar system begins spinning out of control, forcing him to come to terms with the inertia that is his life. Is it too late to try and re-connect with his wife and son? And how did his middling career get so badly off track?"

Previews for the New Group run are scheduled to begin in October.

The New Group season will also boast an Ethan Hawke-directed revival of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind and a new musical based on Dan Savage's "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant."

The New Group is currently presenting Larry Bryggman, David Lansbury and Souleymane Sy Savane in Ian Bruce's Groundswell at The Acorn @ Theatre Row.

For more information visit thenewgroup.org.