The 1979 novel about a Southern writer who falls for a liberated Brooklyn woman in 1947 inspired the Academy Award-nominated film of the same title, which starred Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep (who took the Best Actress Oscar).

Long Wharf artistic director Gordon Edelstein will stage David Rintels' adaptation of the novel that will feature Gugino (Desire Under the Elms, Suddenly Last Summer, "Watchmen," "Entourage") as Sophie. It will play the mainstage April 25-May 20, 2012.

Here's how Long Wharf bills Sophie's Choice: "When Stingo, an aspiring southern writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947, he finds himself helplessly drawn to the magnetic and beautiful Sophie. She lives her life out loud; she is everything that he is not, and he is fascinated. Over the course of one liberating, sexual, and eye-opening summer, Stingo discovers the true nature of the world: all at once colorful, horrible, and thrilling."

Long Wharf will also stage the world premiere of the Gabriel Kahane musical February House Feb. 15-March 18 2012, which is a co-production with the Public Theater, where the work will run in late spring 2012. Davis McCallum will direct the musical that has a libretto by Seth Bockley.

According to Long Wharf: "Bringing together some of the greatest and most colorful minds of a generation (W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee) George Davis tries to create his own utopia in a small house in Brooklyn in the 1940s. The artists discover new ideas exploding at every turn as they find love, friendship and their own artistic voices in a time of war." The Long Wharf season will also include the Fats Waller revue Ain't Misbehavin', directed by Richard Maltby Jr. (Oct. 26-Nov. 20); It’s A Wonderful Life – A Live Radio Play, directed by Eric Ting (Dec. 7-30); Macbeth 1969, conceived, directed and adapted by Ting (Jan. 18-Feb. 12, 2012); and John Van Druten's Bell, Book and Candle, co-produced with Hartford Stage and directed by Darko Tresnjak (March 7-April 1, 2012).

For tickets visit LongWharf.org. The Long Wharf Theatre is located at 222 Sargent Drive in New Haven, CT.