Making His Broadway Debut
Academy Award® Winner, Golden Globe Award® Winner & Bafta® Winner
Forest Whitaker
Is Joined By Tony Award® Winner
Frank Wood
In
HUGHIE
Written By Four-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner & Nobel Prize Laureate
Eugene O’Neill
Directed By Tony Award® Winner & Olivier Award® Winner
Michael Grandage
(New York, NY) – Producers Darren Bagert and Michael Grandage Company announced today that Academy Award® winner, Golden Globe Award® winner & BAFTA winner Forest Whitaker will be joined by Tony Award® winner Frank Wood (Side Man, Angels In America, Clybourne Park) in the Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s HUGHIE, which will begin performances on Friday, February 5, 2016 and officially open on Thursday, February 25, 2016 at Broadway’s Booth Theatre (222 West 45 Street). Directed by Tony Award® winner and Olivier Award® winner Michael Grandage, HUGHIE will play a strictly limited engagement.
Tickets for HUGHIE will go on-sale exclusively for American Express Card Members beginning Sunday, November 1, 2015. American Express Card Members can purchase tickets before the general public beginning Sunday, November 1 at 10am EST through Tuesday, November 10 at 10pm EST, by visiting www.telecharge.com or calling 212.239.6200.
Beginning Wednesday, November 11, 2015 HUGHIE tickets will be available through Audience Rewards (www.AudienceRewards.com), Broadway’s official rewards program. Members of the program will be able to purchase tickets and earn Audience Rewards Bonus Points through Saturday, November 14.
Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Sunday, November 15, 2015 and will be available at www.telecharge.com (212.239.6200).
Michael Grandage reunites with the entire creative team from his Tony Award® winning production of Red and his current West End hit Photograph 51 starring Nicole Kidman including Tony Award® winner Christopher Oram (Sets & Costumes), Tony Award® winner Neil Austin (Lights) and Tony Award® winner Adam Cork (Sound). Each designer received a Tony Award® for their work on the production of Red.
HUGHIE is produced by Darren Bagert, Michael Grandage Company, Adam Zotovich, Joan Raffe & Jhett Tolentino, Arielle Tepper Madover, Martin McCallum, Debbie Bisno, CJ E&M, Jeffrey Finn, Hagemann Rosenthal Associates, Stacey Mindich, Seaview Productions, Taylor Weinstein Theatricals, Michael Watt and The Shubert Organization. Casting is by Calleri Casting. 101 Productions, Ltd. serve as Executive Producers.
The New York Times calls Forest Whitaker, “one of the pre-eminent actors of his generation. Whitaker is a magnetic actor” and the Chicago Tribune says “Forest Whitaker is one of the best actors of our generation.” CBS says “Whitaker doesn't so much play roles as inhabit them” and Variety calls Whitaker “an acting force.”
The New York Times says “Eugene O’Neill is America’s greatest playwright.” “HUGHIE is a full and rich evening of theater” and Time Magazine says “O'Neill is the greatest master of theater the U.S. has ever produced.”
The New York Times says “Michael Grandage has been responsible for some of the most emotionally engaging shows on stage (Red, Frost/Nixon, Hamlet with Jude Law, The Cripple of Inishmaan). He is a craftsman of the theater, and he makes sure that the play’s intellectual arguments are sensually grounded.”
1928. New York City. A hotel lobby. A small-time gambler and big-time drinker makes his way back to Room 492. With a new night clerk on duty, he is forced to confront his personal demons and discover the real end to his own story. HUGHIE is a rarely seen theatrical masterpiece about the loneliness and redemption of one man chasing the American Dream.
HUGHIE premiered on Broadway in 1964 with Jason Robards in the role of “Erie” Smith. The role of “Erie” has been played by illustrious actors such as Burgess Meredith, Ben Gazzara and Al Pacino.
Tickets for HUGHIE range from $79 - $149, and are available at www.telecharge.com (212.239.6200). The Booth Theatre box office will open Monday, January 4, 2016.
The playing schedule for HUGHIE through Thursday, February 25, 2016, is as follows: Monday through Saturday at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm. Please note: There will be no 2pm matinees Saturday, February 6, and Wednesday, February 10, or 8pm performance Monday, February 15, and Monday, February 22. There will be an additional performance Sunday, February 21 at 3pm.
Forest Whitaker (Erie Smith) is an actor, producer and director who has won an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and BATA for his portrayal of Dictator Idi Amin in Taylor Hackford’s The Last King of Scotland, and has appeared in over fifty films that have collectively grossed over $2 billion. Whitaker studied opera and drama in college and his first big-screen break-out performance was in Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Over the next thirty years he worked with the greatest directors of our time, appearing in critically acclaimed films that include Oliver Stone’s Platoon, Clint Eastwood’s Bird ( for which Whitaker won the Best Actor Award at Cannes), Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (opposite Paul Newman), Robert Altman’s Ready to Wear, Wayne Wang’s Smoke, Barry Levinson’s Good Morning Vietnam, Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, David Fincher's Panic Room, Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are, Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters, and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. As a director, Mr. Whitaker’s work includes HBO’s Strapped, Waiting to Exhale, Hope Floats, and First Daughter. Most recently Mr. Whitaker won critical acclaim for his performance in Antoine Fuqua’s Southpaw, with upcoming film projects that include Star Wars: Rogue One.
Frank Wood (Night Clerk) won the Tony Award and the Drama League Award for Side Man. He went on to play the role of “Gene” on London’s West End and in Australia. Frank was last seen on Broadway in Clybourne Park. Off-Broadway, he was in MCC’s production of The Nether at The Lucille Lortel Theatre, and played “Roy Cohn” in the Signature Theatre Company’s revival of Angels in America. Wood’s additional Broadway credits include August: Osage County; Born Yesterday; Hollywood Arms and he has been seen Off-Broadway in the original productions of Spring Awakening at The Atlantic Theatre, Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, Minetta Lane Theatre and CSC. He has been seen on film in Gold, Changeling, Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Dan in Real Life, Thirteen Days, Pollock, People I Know, In America, Down to You, Royal Tennenbaums, Greetings from Tim Buckley, and The Missing Person. Frank’s Television credits include “The Newsroom,” “The Good Wife,” “Modern Family,” “Elementary,” “Blue Bloods,” “The Knick,” “Girls,” “Flight of the Conchords,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Sopranos,” and “Law & Order: SVU.” Frank Wood has performed regionally at The Goodman Theatre; ACT; Long Wharf Theatre; Hartford Stage; Williamstown Theatre Fest.; McCarter Theatre; Cincinnati Playhouse; Arena Stage, DC; Mark Taper Forum, LA. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University (BA) and NYU Graduate Acting Program (MFA).
Michael Grandage (Director) is a multi-award winning director and producer. His recent Broadway credits include Red (Tony Award winner and Drama Desk Award winner for Best Director), The Cripple of Inishmaan, Frost/Nixon, Hamlet with Jude Law and Evita. Mr. Grandage is currently represented in the West End with the U.K. premiere of the new play Photograph 51, starring Nicole Kidman and written by Anna Ziegler. He was artistic director of London’s Donmar Warehouse from 2002-2012, where his work included Richard II, Luise Miller, Red, King Lear, Jude Law in Hamlet (also Elsinore and New York), Ivanov (Evening Standard and Critics Circle Award Best Director), Madame de Sade, Twelfth Night, The Chalk Garden (Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards Best Director), Don Juan in Soho, Frost/Nixon (also Gielgud, New York, USA tour, Tony Nomination Award for Best Director), Othello (Evening Standard and Critic's Circle Awards for Best Director), The Wild Duck (Critic's Circle Award Best Director), Guys and Dolls (Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production), Grand Hotel (Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production and Evening Standard Award Best Director), The Cut, After Miss Julie, Caligula (Olivier Award Best Director), Merrily We Roll Along (Evening Standard Award Best Director), Passion Play (Evening Standard Award and Critics Circle Award for Best Director). For Sheffield Theatres he directed many productions including Don Carlos (Evening Standard Award Best Director). He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by both Sheffield University and Sheffield Hallam University and is President of Central School of Speech and Drama. He was appointed CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2011. His book A Decade At The Donmar, was published by Constable & Robins in 2012. Michael Grandage Company
Eugene O'Neill (Playwright). Born in New York City on October 16, 1888, he was the first great American playwright. Beyond the Horizon (1920) won a Pulitzer Prize (he eventually won four), and in 1936 he became the only American playwright ever awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His major works include The Emperor Jones (1920); The Hairy Ape (1922); Desire Under the Elms (1924); The Great God Brown (1926); Strange Interlude (1928); Mourning Becomes Electra (1931); Ah, Wilderness! (1933); A Moon for the Misbegotten (1947); Hughie (1964); A Touch of the Poet (1958), The Iceman Cometh (1939) and Long Day's Journey Into Night, completed in 1941 but unproduced until three years after his death on November 27, 1953.