Broadway stalwarts Stockard Channing and Peter Riegert will star in a Showtime adaptation of Jane Anderson's Off-Broadway play The Baby Dance. Anderson, making her directorial debut, will pilot her own screenplay. The television movie will air Aug. 23 at 9 PM (ET) and again on Aug. 31 at 8 PM and Sept. 9 at 6:15 PM. Check local listings for times elsewhere.
Anderson's Defying Gravity was seen Off-Broadway last fall at the American Place Theatre. The Baby Dance, however, is perhaps her best known stage work to date. It had a run Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 1991. Anderson has also penned the film How to Make an American Quilt and the television movie The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom.
The film also stars Laura Dern and Richard Lineback. Jodie Foster is executive producer of the film, along with Robert Halmi, Jr., Tony Allard and Matthew O'Connor. Meg LeFauve and Vicky Herman are the producers.
The Baby Dance concerns a poor couple (Dern and Lineback) who are about to have their fifth child, a birth they can not afford. They solicit another couple hopeful of adopting the child (Channing and Riegert). When the awaited baby arrives, however, unexpected complications arise.
Channing's many stage credits include Six Degrees of Separation, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, Hapgood and last season's revival of The Little Foxes. She also appeared in the film version of Six Degrees, for which she earned an Oscar nomination. Peter Riegart recently appeared on Broadway in David Mamet's The Old Neighborhood, and, in 1997, acted in the Wendy Wasserstein play An American Daughter. Other stage credits include The Birthday Party and The Nerd. His film work includes Local Hero and Crossing Delancy.
Richard Lineback is a veteran of the New York production of The Baby Dance. On film, he has acted in Tin Cup and Speed. Laura Dern is best known for her many films, including Rambling Rose, Blue Velvet, Jurassic Park, Smooth Talk, and Wild at Heart.
-- By Robert Simonson
