Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger will star on Broadway this spring in a world premiere production of Paula Vogel’s new Mother Play, to be directed by Tina Landau.
The Second Stage Theater production will begin a limited engagement at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater on Tuesday, April 2, with an official opening on Thursday, April 25.
Mother Play by Pulitzer Prize winner Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) is described by Second Stage as “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.”
The synopsis: “It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis is supervising her teenage children, Carl and Martha, 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.”
The production, part of Second Stage’s 45th anniversary season, 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.
Mother Play will mark Lange’s first Broadway appearance since her Tony-winning performance in 2016’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. She made her Broadway debut in 1992’s A Streetcar Named Desire and returned in 2005 for The Glass Menagerie. Mother Play will be her first Broadway performance in an entirely new play.
Parsons was last on Broadway in the 2018 production of the Tony-winning revival of The Boys In The Band, with other Broadway credits including 2011’s The Normal Heart, 2012’s Harvey and, in 2015, An Act of God. His most recent New York stage appearance was in the 2022 Off Broadway revival of A Man of No Importance.
Keenan-Bolger won a Tony for originating the role of Scout Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s 2018 adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. She made her Broadway debut in 2005’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, with other Broadway credits including Les Misérables, 2012’s Peter and The Starcatcher, 2013’s The Glass Menagerie and The Cherry Orchard in 2016. In addition to Spelling Bee, Keenan-Bolger has appeared in such Second Stage productions as A Parallelogram, Bachelorette and Little Fish.
Director Landau’s long list of stage credits includes the Broadway productions of Bells Are Ringing, Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts and musical Spongebob Squarepants.