Film/stage actor Paul Giamatti has been added to the roster of the upcoming Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. Giamatti will play the role of procrastinating Jimmy Tomorrow.
It won't be the first time Giamatti's worked with the show's star, Kevin Spacey. Giamatti appeared in Spacey's last film, "The Negotiator." Though Giamatti has appeared on Broadway numerous times, including Three Sisters at the Roundabout, Arcadia and Racing Demon, filmgoers may remember him best for his featured role as "Pig Vomit" in "Howard Stern's Private Parts." Other film credits for Giamatti include: "Saving Private Ryan," "The Truman Show," and the HBO movie, "Winchell."
Giamatti joins the cast of Spacey, Robert Sean Leonard, Patrick Godfrey, James Hazeldine, Clarke Peters, and Tim Pigott-Smith. The latter four all appeared in the British production of Iceman earlier this year.
Actor and sitcom mainstay Tony Danza has been offered the role of the bartender in the upcoming revival, said Danza's agent's office. The actor has not yet accepted.
Earlier this year, Danza took over the lead from Anthony LaPaglia in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of The View from the Bridge , receiving largely positive reviews. Danza's Broadway stay was short lived, however, as View failed to find an audience and soon closed. Previews for Iceman begin March 29, 1999 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre for an April 8, 1999 opening and a limited engagement through June, 1999.
In London, the hit O'Neill drama opened at the Old Vic on June 19 for a run through Aug. 1, 1998. The Almeida Theatre production, directed by Howard Davies (Almeida's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), was greeted with ecstatic reviews and sold-out performances upon opening.
The Iceman Cometh concerns the deluded "pipe dreams" of characters at Harry Hope's saloon who are confronted by Hickey (Spacey), a man who has broken free of his dreams and seeks to lead the others to do the same. Things come undone, however, when the reason for Hickey's transformation becomes known.
The Iceman Cometh is the third, star-studded Almeida production to enjoy a West End run this season. Having opened Apr. 2, it followed David Hare's The Judas Kiss, starring Liam Neeson, and Pirandello's Naked, with Juliette Binoche.
Although best-known for his work in films such as "The Usual Suspects," for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, "Seven" and "L.A. Confidential," Kevin Spacey's theatre credits are numerous. Broadway appearances have included Ibsen's Ghosts, O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers for which he won a Tony award in 1991 (the film role, however, went to Richard Dreyfuss).
The Iceman Cometh begins previews at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre March 29, with the official opening date set for April 8, 1999.
