Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, President and Artistic Director; Lisa Lawer Post, Interim Executive Director) today announced that Tony Award winner Celia Keenan-Bolger, Academy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award winner Jessica Lange, and Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award winner Jim Parsons will star in the world premiere, MOTHER PLAY, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel and directed by Tina Landau.
Part of Second Stage’s 45th Anniversary Season, this limited engagement will begin previews Tuesday, April 2nd and will officially open on Thursday, April 25th, 2024 at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater (240 West 44th Street).
From Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) comes MOTHER PLAY, a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past.
It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis (Jessica Lange) is supervising her teenage children, Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger), as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures — or survives — the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful rollercoaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.
MOTHER PLAY will feature scenic design by David Zinn, costume design by Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by Jen Schriever, and sound design by Jill BC Du Boff. Casting is by The Telsey Office.