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Tony Award winner Adrienne Warren (Tina – The Tina Turner Musical) will star in the American premiere of ROOM, written and adapted for the stage by Emma Donoghue, based on her 2010 best-selling novel which she also adapted into the award-winning 2015 film. The production, featuring songs and music by Scottish songwriters Kathryn Joseph and Cora Bissett and directed by Ms. Bissett, will open Monday, April 17, 2023 on Broadway at the Shubert Organization’s brilliantly restored James Earl Jones Theatre (138 West 48th Street), with previews beginning on April 3, 2023. The limited engagement will run through September 17, 2023. Additional casting will be announced in coming weeks. Tickets will be available at Telecharge.com on Monday, February 6, 2023.
“I am truly honored for the opportunity to return to Broadway in a project unlike anything I’ve done before,” Adrienne Warren commented. “There were many reasons I wanted to join this team in telling this story, but most importantly, I wanted to share this beautifully human bond between a mother and her son. This is for all the little Jack’s out there determined to hold on to their sense of joy and wonder and all the Ma’s out there doing their absolute best to live, love, and protect through it all.”
ROOM comes to Broadway following its critically acclaimed 2017 world premiere at Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, UK, and productions at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland; the National Theatre of Scotland; the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario; and the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.
Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma (Adrienne Warren) has been locked for seven years inside a purpose-built room in her captor’s garden. Her five-year-old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily exists inside Room with the help of Ma’s games and his vivid imagination where objects like Rug, Lamp and TV are his only friends. But for Ma the time has come to escape and face their biggest challenge to date: the world outside Room.
Irish Canadian author and playwright Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel ROOM sold close to three million copies and was shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Booker Prize and Orange Prize for Fiction. Donoghue also wrote the screenplay for the critically acclaimed 2015 film adaptation, for which she received Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations for Adapted Screenplay, and for which she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Screenplay.
Donoghue was approached by Scottish director, playwright, and musician Cora Bissett to adapt ROOM for the stage. Donoghue was excited to explore the inherent theatricality in the story of a mother and son who share stories, songs, hope and joy to cope with their desperate situation. Bissett directs and co-wrote the show’s songs with fellow Scottish singer/songwriter Kathryn Joseph.
Star Adrienne Warren earned ecstatic reviews in London and on Broadway for her electrifying performance as Tina Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. The Washington Post raved about her, “Warren has that extra something — the rare gene on the E! chromosome, for entertainer, maybe? — that separates a workmanlike portrayal from a great one.” For her performance in Tina, she won the Tony Award, Drama Desk, Antonyo Award and Outer Critics Circle Award. She was also nominated for the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards. Her Broadway appearances also include Shuffle Along (Tony nomination) and Bring It On: The Musical, and the national tour of Dreamgirls. Her recent credits include the film, The Woman King, and the ABC limited series, “Women of the Movement.”
The production features set and costume design by Lily Arnold and projection design by Andrzej Goulding.
ROOM is produced by Sam Julyan, James Yeoburn, ShowTown Productions and Hunter Arnold. ShowTown Theatricals serves as general managers.