PHOTO CALL: Private Lives Opens on Broadway; Arrivals, Curtain Call and Party | Playbill

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News PHOTO CALL: Private Lives Opens on Broadway; Arrivals, Curtain Call and Party Noel Coward's 1930 comedy Private Lives, featuring that other famous balcony scene of the theatre, opened on Broadway Nov. 17 following previews from Nov. 6. Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross star, under the direction of Richard Eyre. The Music Box on 45th Street serves as their theatrical "room with a view."

Cattrall, the English-born actress known for playing Samantha Jones in the "Sex and the City" franchise, is Amanda, the stylish divorcee who is honeymooning in the South of France with her new hubby, Victor (played by Simon Paisley Day), when she discovers that the adjoining hotel balcony is populated by her ex, Elyot, played by Canadian star Gross ("Sling & Arrows," the Stratford Shakespeare Festival), who is on his honeymoon with bride Sybil (played by Anna Madeley).

Here is complete photo coverage of the cast and guests on opening night:

Private Lives Opens on Broadway; Arrivals, Curtain Call and Party


The Cattrall-Eyre production was first seen in a well-reviewed 2010 London run that was reconceived (adding Gross, who was also the star of the TV series "Due South") for this new Broadway incarnation, which had a tryout this fall at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre. This limited Broadway engagement plays to Feb. 5, 2012. Read what Eyre told Playbill.com about the production — his first brush with the work of Coward. Caroline Lena Olsson plays a frumpy French maid who encounter chaos in the deco fantasia of a Paris flat shared by Amanda and Elyot. The design team is Rob Howell (set and costumes) and David Howe (lighting).

Director Eyre (Broadway and London's Mary Poppins, Amy's View, Indiscretions) was director of London's Royal National Theatre 1988-1997.

Private Lives is produced by Duncan C. Weldon, Paul Elliott, Theatre Royal Bath, Terri and Timothy Childs, Sonia Friedman and David Mirvish.

Here's how the producers officially characterize the popular comedy from the author of Design for Living, Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter: "Considered one of the greatest comedies ever written, Noël Coward's Private Lives premiered in London in 1930 and has been produced around the world ever since; it premiered on Broadway in 1931. Glamorous, rich and reckless, Amanda (Cattrall) and Elyot (Gross) have been divorced from each other for five years. Now both are honeymooning with their new spouses in the South of France. When, by chance, they meet again across adjoining hotel balconies, their insatiable feelings for each other are immediately rekindled. They hurl themselves headlong into love and lust without a care for scandal, new partners or memories of what drove them apart in the first place…for a little while, anyway."

Gross and Cattrall croon the Coward song "Someday I'll Find You" in the play's more sentimental moments.

Private Lives was last seen on Broadway in 2002, when it won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Lindsay Duncan won the Tony as Best Actress, playing opposite nominee Alan Rickman.

Tickets are available through www.telecharge.com. For more information, visit www.privatelivesbroadway.com.

 
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