The previously announced Roundabout Theatre Company production moves its opening night one week later due to the just-announced revival of Terrence McNally's The Ritz — starring Rosie Perez and Kevin Chamberlin — which will open Oct. 11 at Studio 54.
David Grindley (Journey's End) will direct the new Broadway staging of Shaw's Pygmalion, slated to start previews Sept. 14 at the American Airlines Theatre for a limited run through Dec. 16.
Mays earned accolades for his turn in Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama I Am My Own Wife. Star of Broadway's current Journey's End and recent New York City Center Encores! staging of Of Thee I Sing, Mays has also been seen in Moe's Lucky Seven, Lydie Breeze and Quills and regionally in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, Misalliance, The Importance Of Being Earnest, The Cherry Orchard and more.
Well-known as the inspiration for the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical My Fair Lady, the Shaw drama based on the classical myth finds "Professor Henry Higgins (Mays) [who] comes across a poor and uneducated Cockney girl named Eliza Doolittle... [and] makes a bet that he can take Eliza from the gutters of London and pass her off as a society lady, by simply teaching her the right dialect in which to speak," as show notes explain.
Further casting will be announced shortly. The design team will feature Jonathan Fensom (sets and costumes), Jason Taylor (lights), Gregory Clarke (sound) and Majella Hurley (dialect coach).
Roundabout continues its association with works of Shaw following last season's Heartbreak House. Previous productions also include Major Barbara (2000-2001), Arms and the Man (1999-2000), You Never Can Tell (1997 1998) and Misalliance (1996-1997).
Pygmalion first hit the Broadway stage in 1914 at the Park Theatre and has been revived on Broadway four times since. The most recent (in 1987) starred Peter O'Toole as Higgins and Amanda Plummer as Doolittle.
Tickets to Pygmalion at the American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, will go on sale in August through Roundabout Ticket Services at (212)719-1300. For more information, visit roundabouttheatre.org.
