New Drama Sixteen Wounded with Hirsch and Plimpton Opens on Broadway, April 15 | Playbill

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News New Drama Sixteen Wounded with Hirsch and Plimpton Opens on Broadway, April 15 Judd Hirsch and newcomer Omar Metwally star in Eliam Kraiem's Sixteen Wounded as the Jewish-Palestinian drama opens April 15 at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre.
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Judd Hirsch in Sixteen Wounded Photo by Joan Marcus

Tony Award winner Garry Hynes (The Beauty Queen of Leenane) directs the work which began previews March 22. Martha Plimpton, Jan Maxwell and Waleed F. Zuaiter also star.

Set in 1990s Holland, Sixteen Wounded traces the unlikely friendship between a Jewish baker and his young Palestinian apprentice. The stagework is the first play by rising scribe Kraiem.

Hirsch plays Hans, a Jewish baker in mental flight from his history and the world, who rarely ventures beyond his bakery and upstairs home. When a young, hot-headed Palestinian (Metwally) unexpectedly enters his life, he takes the man under his wing, giving him a job. The unspoken histories of the two men lead to some uncomfortable and painful revelations later on.

Maxwell plays a Russian-born prostitute whom Hirsch loves. Plimpton is bakery clerk and dancer who falls in love with the apprentice. Zuaiter is the Palestinian's older brother.

The work was developed workshop at the Sundance Theater Lab in 1997 and as part of the Mentor Season series at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 2002. The Long Wharf Theatre staged the play with Academy Award-winner Martin Landau heading up the cast in 2003. Off-Broadway vet Plimpton (Hobson's Choice, subUrbia) makes her Broadway debut with Sixteen Wounded as does Zuaiter (Homebody/Kabul - Berkeley Repertory Theatre). Landau's New Haven, Connecticut co-star Omar Metwally reprises his role opposite Judd Hirsch (Art, I'm Not Rappaport) and Jan Maxwell (The Dinner Party).

Jujamcyn Theaters, Producers Four and Robert G. Bartner, in association with Debra Black, Lisa Vioni and Michael Watt produce the Broadway run. The design team for Sixteen Wounded will feature Francis O'Connor (set and costume), James F. Ingalls (lighting) and John Gromada (sound).

Director Hynes made history in 1998 as the very first female director to garner a Tony Award for Direction, for her staging of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, albeit mere moments before Julie Taymor became the first woman to win for Best Direction of a Musical for The Lion King. She followed up her success with another nomination for her work on The Lonesome West in 1999.

Sixteen Wounded will be the third-to-last new play in the final rush of the 2003-2004 season, followed by Frozen (set for a May 4 opening) and Prymate which will end on the Tony Award eligibility cut-off date, May 5.

Sixteen Wounded performs at the Walter Kerr located at 219 West 48th Street.

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Judd Hirsch (left) and Omar Metwally in Sixteen Wounded Photo by Joan Marcus
 
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