October 5, 2006

Tony Award® Winners Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy Star In Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's Inherit The Wind
Coming to Broadway

A new production of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s legendary 1955 drama, Inherit The Wind, will come to Broadway in March, 2007, it was announced today. Two-time Tony Award winners® Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy will star in the production, which will play a twelve week limited engagement at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street), directed by Tony Award® winner Doug Hughes.

Inherit The Wind will be produced on Broadway by Boyett Ostar Productions and The Shubert Organization, with Jon Avnet/Ralph Guild, Roy Furman, Lawrence Horowitz, and Bill Rollnick.

Mr. Plummer is a two-time Tony Award® winner for Cyrano (1973) and Barrymore (1997) and most recently earned rave reviews for his performance on Broadway in King Lear (2004). Mr. Dennehy has won Tony Awards® for his last two performances on Broadway in Death of a Salesman (1999) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2003). Mr. Hughes won a Tony Award® in 2005 for his direction of Doubt.

Inherit The Wind is a fictionalized retelling of the famous 1925 “Monkey Trial,” in which science teacher John Scopes was tried and convicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution, violating a Tennessee law that forbade teaching any theory that conflicted with the Biblical conception of Divine Creation. Mr. Dennehy will play the role of attorney Matthew Harrison Brady (based on William Jennings Bryan), and Mr. Plummer will play attorney Henry Drummond (based on Clarence Darrow).

Inherit The Wind, often considered one of the great plays of the twentieth century, first played on Broadway in 1955 at the National Theatre (now the Nederlander), with Paul Muni and Ed Begley earning Tony Awards® for their performances as Drummond and Brady, respectively. The popular 1960 movie version starred Spencer Tracy and Frederic March, and three television adaptations have also been filmed.

Oscar® nominated and Tony Award®-winning designer Santo Loquasto will design the sets and costumes for the production.

Additional casting and other members of the creative team will be announced shortly.

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CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER (Henry Drummond) began professionally in Montreal, Quebec, 1949, on radio and stage in French and English; worked under legendary director Fyodor Komisarjevsky. France: Jason opposite Dame Judith Anderson's Medea (Paris International Festival). Broadway: The Starcross Story with Eva Le Gallienne (debut); Home Is the Hero; The Dark Is Light Enough opposite Katharine Cornell (Theatre World Award); The Lark opposite Julie Harris; Night of the Ark; Nickles in Elia Kazan's production of J.B.; title role in Brecht's Arturo Ui; Pizarro in The Royal Hunt of the Sun; title role in Cyrano, the musical (Tony Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards); Neil Simon's The Good Doctor (NY Drama League Award); Iago in Othello (Tony nomination); Macbeth; No Man's Land (Tony nomination); Barrymore (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Edwin Booth and National Arts Awards), King Lear (Tony and Drama Desk nomination). England: many roles as leading member of both RSC (Sir Peter Hall) and the National Theatre (Sir Laurence Olivier) including Becket (Evening Standard Award) and title role in Danton's Death directed by Sir Jonathan Miller (Evening Standard nomination). Many films and television roles including BBC-groundbreaking and Emmy Award-winning "Hamlet at Elsinore" (title role). Canada: Stratford Festival in its formative years under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham, playing most of the great roles in the canon. Film: a veteran of approximately 100 movies ranging from Oscar-winning The Sound of Music, The Man Who Would Be King, Waterloo and Dolores Claiborne to Oscar-nominated The Insider (National Society Film Critics' Award), Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, Nicholas Nickleby and the upcoming Alexander the Great and National Treasure. His many TV appearances have garnered him two Emmy Awards and six Emmy nominations. Among honors in the UK, U.S., Austria and Canada, he has received the Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's Genie Award and the Governor General's Award. An honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Juilliard School, he received the first Jason Robards Award in the memory of his great friend. In 1986 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

BRIAN DENNEHY (Matthew Harrison Brady) won the 1999 Tony Award for best actor in a play for the 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Mr. Dennehy also received a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy nomination as best actor for Showtime's television adaptation of that production. He earned a second Tony Award in 2003 for his performance in Robert Falls’ production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. He also starred on Broadway in Brian Friel's Translations. At Chicago's Goodman Theatre he appeared in the leading roles in Long Day's Journey Into Night (2002), Death of a Salesman (1998), A Touch of the Poet (1996), The Iceman Cometh (1992) and Galileo (1986). He and Falls collaborated again in 1992 for a remounting of The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Additional theatre credits include Peter Brook's 1988 production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Majestic Theater; Wisdom Bridge Theatre's production of Rat in the Skull; and Says I, Says He at the Mark Taper Forum and the Phoenix Theatre in New York. Mr. Dennehy has also starred in numerous television movies and miniseries and was nominated for an Emmy on four other occasions - for his work in "Burden of Proof," "To Catch a Killer (The John Wayne Gacy Story)," "Murder in the Heartland" and "A Killing in a Small Town." However, Mr. Dennehy is perhaps best known for his work in feature films, which include Semi-Tough, 10, Rambo: First Blood, Gorky Park, Never Cry Wolf, Twice in a Lifetime, Cocoon, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, Best Seller, Presumed Innocent, Tommy Boy, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect, for which he received the Chicago Film Festival Award as best actor.

DOUG HUGHES (Director) is an associate artist at Roundabout Theatre Company, where he most recently directed A Touch of the Poet, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and The Paris Letter. He is also the Resident Director at MCC, where he has directed Frozen and The Grey Zone (1996 Obie Award, Direction). For Frozen, Hughes received Tony, Outer Critics Circle and Lortel award nominations. Other recent work in New York includes The House in Town at Lincoln Center Theater, Engaged at TFANA; Flesh and Blood (Callaway Award, Best Direction) at NYTW; Othello at the Public; Lake Hollywood at Signature; and Doubt, Defiance and An Experiment with an Air Pump for MTC. For Doubt, Hughes won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. He also won the Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics, Drama Desk and Callaway awards for the same production. In May 2005, Hughes received an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence.

JEROME LAWRENCE and ROBERT E. LEE (Authors) met in 1942 and shortly thereafter became an inseparable pair. After the prolific authors wrote Inherit the Wind, they adapted Patrick Dennis's novel Auntie Mame into a comedy hit on Broadway, and subsequently wrote the libretto for the musical Mame. Inherit the Wind ran for three years on Broadway. Other Broadway productions include First Monday in October, The Incomparable Max, Dear World, Diamond Orchid, A Call on Kuprin, Only in America, The Gang's All Here, Shangri-La, and Look Ma, I'm Dancin'! Lawrence and Lee won two Peabody Awards for distinguished Achievement in Broadcasting and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Theatre Association. In 1990, they were inducted into the National Theatre Hall of Fame.