The New York premiere of the work is scheduled to begin Sept. 9 at the American Airlines Theatre and officially open on Oct. 6 for a limited engagement through Nov. 27. More cast members and the design team are to be announced shortly.
Clayburgh — who plays the cookbook author-matriarch Bess Lapin — returns to Broadway for the first time since 1985's Design For Living. The two-time Academy Award-nominated actress (for "Starting Over" and "An Unmarried Woman") has also appeared on Broadway in Jumpers, Pippin, The Rothschilds and The Sudden and Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson.
The wife of playwright David Rabe (Hurlyburly) and mother to actress Lily Rabe (Steel Magnolias) will mark her return to the stage with a followup role (as Mrs. Banks) in the upcoming Broadway revival of Barefoot in the Park.
A Naked Girl on the Appian Way follows the chain reaction of revelations unearthed in a neighborhood when two siblings return to their American home following a year-long excursion in Europe. A successful author/ cooking-show host and socially-inept eccentric genius of sorts are at the head of the family in the play.
The work made its world premiere at California's South Coast Repertory Theatre — where the work was first commissioned. The new staging marks a departure from the Roundabout's usual revival-heavy Broadway programming — in fact, only Heather McDonald's new play, An Almost Holy Picture (with Kevin Bacon's star power), has played at the company's AA Theatre. Hughes — who was just honored with the Tony Award for his direction of Doubt — staged the Roundabout's current Off-Broadway show, Jon Robin Baitz's The Paris Letter as well as the Laura Pels Theatre's previous tenant, Stephen Belber's McReele. The director of last year's Frozen will reteam with the non-profit on its Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet and playwright Greenberg on his new The House in Town for Lincoln Center Theatre.
Greenberg's play include The Violet Hour, Everett Beekin, Three Days of Rain, Eastern Standard, The American Plan, Life Under Water and The Author's Voice. Roundabout has produced his Hurrah At Last and The Dazzle Off-Broadway. He also adapted Strindberg's Dance of Death for the recent Broadway staging with Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren and David Straithairn.
Naked Girl kicks off the 2005-2006 season for Roundabout which marks the company's 40th anniversary. The lineup also currently includes Gabriel Byrne in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet (starting Nov. 11) and Alan Cumming, Edie Falco and Nellie McKay in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera as translated and adapted by Wallace Shawn (Spring 2006). Other works include Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade, John Guare's The House Of Blue Leaves and Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane.
Tickets to Naked Girl at the American Airlines Theatre will be available in August through Roundabout Ticket Services at (212) 719-1300. For more information, visit www.roundabouttheatre.org.
