Matthew Broderick, Mia Farrow, Uta Hagen and Jonathan Pryce will star in a benefit reading of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Nov. 14 at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway.
Pryce recently replaced Anthony Hopkins who had been previously announced for the reading. There was no word on why Hopkins was forced to cancel his appearance other than it happened quickly and that Pryce was to fly in and take his place.
Broderick's many theatre credits include How to Succeed..., for which he won a Tony, and Night Must Fall, which played Broadway last season.
The special reading will benefit the HB Playwrights Foundation & Theatre, which is named for Herbert Berghof, who was married to Uta Hagen. A gala supper will follow the performance at the Marriott Marquis on Broadway and West 45th Street. Production sources tell Playbill On-Line there are some tickets still available -- both for the performance only, as well as the gala dinner.
Event organizers for the benefit include gala chairs Jack Lemmon, Dina Merrill, Danny & Audrey Meyer, Harold Prince and Isaac Stern. In the premiere 1962 staging of Edward Albee's award-wining play, Uta Hagen created the role of Martha, taking home that season's Tony Award for Best Actress. The critically acclaimed play involves a middle-aged couple, George and Martha, who invite a younger professor, Nick, and his wife, Honey, over for an evening that turns into a night of drunken game games-playing.
In 1965, the HB Studio was already a NYC institution when Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen realized their dream of establishing a theatre that would serve as a creative home for theatre artists. The HB Playwrights Foundation & Theatre is dedicated to preserving and extending the development process: the studio offers high level training for actors, and the theatre gives playwrights a forum to develop their work.
Among the more than 130 playwrights who have found a home at HB are Tennessee Williams, Horton Foote, Donald Margulies, Thornton Wilder, Martin Sherman and Saul Bellow to name a few.
For reservations please call (212) 838-2660. The benefit reading of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf takes place Nov. 14 at 6 PM at the Majestic Theatre, 247 West 44th Street.
