New productions of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara and Clare Booth Luce’s The Women have been announced for the Roundabout Theatre Company for 2001. Cherry Jones will star as the title character in the Shaw, to be directed by Daniel Sullivan. Newsday reports (April 19) that she'll play opposite English actor David Warner.

Shaw's comedy-drama will begin previews June 15 and open July 12 at the American Airlines Theatre. Jones will play Barbara Undershaft, the idealistic Salvation Army worker who continues her good works even though her father is the egotistical and maddeningly well-spoken munitions industrialist Andrew Undershaft. The latter character is one of the greatest and most entertaining in all of Shaw. Actress Jones told Newsday, "The thing about Undershaft is that he has to have all these different facets, this civility and gentleness and calm, and yet he expresses these horrific ideas, which are also persuasive. I am beside myself with excitement about the entire cast."

That cast also includes Dana Ivey (The Death of Papa at CT's Hartford Stage), Zak Orth and Denis O'Hare (Cabaret). (The latter will again be directed by Daniel Sullivan when Ten Unknowns moves from the Mitzi Newhouse to Broadway this fall).

Actor Warner is currently seen in the Arts & Entertainment Network's series "Retribution," about Captain Horatio Hornblower.

Jones starred in the Broadway revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten in 2000. She won a Tony Award for The Heiress. Daniel Sullivan has done very well the past two season directing new works by contemporary authors, such as Proof, Ten Unknowns, Spinning Into Butter and Dinner With Friends. This will be his first stab at a classic since Moon.