The West End production of Patrick Marber's award-winning play, Closer, will finish its sell-out, seven-month run at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue at the end of its current booking period, Oct. 31.
Closer transferred to the Lyric from the Royal National Theatre on Mar. 31, following previews from Mar. 19, for a "limited 12-week only" season. The play originally opened at the National's Cottesloe Theatre in May 1997 before transferring to the larger Lyttelton in October of that year.
Closer has announced a spring 1999 opening for Broadway and may move into the newly refurbished Music Box Theatre (last home to 1997's revival of The Diary Of Anne Frank), according to the Oct. 5 Theatrical Index. Rumors, including posts on the bulletin boards of Closer's own official site, have Rupert Graves in the cast. Graves was most recently of the Almedia and West End stagings of the Kevin Spacey The Iceman Cometh, set to open on Broadway April 8, 1999.
According to production spokesman John Barlow, no theatre, cast or dates have yet been confirmed for the Broadway mounting of Closer .
Among its many accolades, Closer has won the 1997 Time Out Award for Best Play in the West End, the 1997 Evening Standard Best Comedy Award, the 1997 Critics Circle Best Play Award and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Marber was also a runner-up for the 1997 Lloyds' Playwright of the Year Award and actress Sally Dexter, who played "Anna" in the RNT cast, earned an Olivier nomination for Best Actress. The play, which explores the vicissitudes of modern love, features a quartet of lovers caught up in a web of love, lust, sex and betrayal. The various casts of foursomes have featured many prominent actors including Liza Walker, Frances Barber, Imogen Stubbs, Neil Pearson, Lloyd Owen and Tom Mannion.
Closer is written and directed by Patrick Marber with design by Vicki Mortimer, lighting by Hugh Vanstone and music by Paddy Cuneen.
For further information, contact the Lyric Theatre box office on 011-44-171-494-5045.
The London production of Closer has an official website at http://www.closer.co.uk.
