The upcoming Broadway play, Fortune's Fool, will try out Feb. 22-March 3 in Stamford before reaching the Music Box Theatre March 8.
The production stars Frank Langella, Alan Bates, Bates' son, Benedick Bates, Enid Graham, George Morfogen (Uncle Bob), Jeremy Hollingworth, Charles Antalosky, Beth Bartley, Timothy Doyle, Ann Ducati, Patrick Hallahan, John Newton and Obie-winner Lola Pashalinski (Kushner's Dybbuk and the Central Park Skin of Our Teeth).
Actor Langella played husband to Collins' wife in the West End bow of Ken Ludwig's Moon Over Buffalo, retitled Over the Moon for English audiences unfamiliar with the Great Lakes city. Langella left the production after only a brief stay in the comedy. The actor's last Broadway credit was Present Laughter, directed by Scott Elliott. His most recent New York appearance was as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.
Actor Bates, a Tony winner for 1973's Butley and a film star via "An Unmarried Woman" and "Women in Love." recently donated £50,000 to The Actors' Centre in Covent Garden. It was a display of both generosity and family loyalty in helping refurbish the Tristan Bates Theatre, the Centre's auditorium. The theatre, which Bates helped found, is named in honor of his son, a model, who died at age 19, some ten years ago, of complications following an asthma attack when working in Japan. Bates's other son, Tristan's twin, is the aforementioned Benedick Bates who appeared earlier this year at the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue, in Thelma Holt's production of Noel Coward's Semi Monde. Before Fortune's Fool he's been touring with his father in a stage version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray.
Graham, who came to the fore in the otherwise poorly-received Honour, has been a frequent Off-Broadway presence since, including the recent Psych and stints in revivals of Look Back in Anger and Crimes of the Heart. Film star Langella ("The Twelve Chairs," "Dave") was last seen fleeing the London production of Over the Moon in which he and co-star Joan Collins reportedly didn't see eye to eye.
Fortune's Fool is a a rarely-staged Ivan Turgenev play adapted by Michael Poulton. The show will try out at the Stamford Center for the Arts (CT), as a "pre-Broadway engagement," and then open at Broadway's Music Box Theatre April 2, after previews starting March 8. A limited run of 96 performances is planned. Noted film director and Tony winner Arthur Penn ("Bonnie and Clyde") will helm, with Jane Greenwood creating the costumes, Brian Nason (1776), the lighting, Brian Ronan (Cabaret) the sound and John Arnone the set.
Poulton's play is being produced by SFS Productions (Julian Schlossberg, Roy L. Furman and Ben Sprecher), Ted Tulchin and Aaron Levy, in association with actress Rita Gam.
The Stamford Center recently held the pre-New York run of the musical Summer of `42.
Poulton's Fortune's Fool, is unrelated to the Frederick Stroppel comedy Fortunes Fools which played Off-Broadway's Cherry Lane Theatre in 1995. According to production spokespersons at The Publicity Office, the Turgenev play, about a cash-poor nobleman confronting his wealthy neighbor, has never been done on Broadway before.
For tickets and information call (212) 239-6200 on or after Feb. 11.
