Bengal Tiger: R. Williams to make Broadway acting debut

The Oscar, Emmy and Grammy Award-winning actor Robin Williams will make his Broadway acting debut this season when he stars in Rajiv Joseph's play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo - a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize - with previews starting 10 Mar 2011 prior to an official opening night on 31 Mar 2011 at a Broadway theatre to be announced.

Directed by Moises Kaufman, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo premiered in 2009 at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre and was remounted at CTG's larger theatre in Los Angeles, the Mark Taper Forum, in the spring of 2010.

Williams joins the cast of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo for New York. He previously appeared Off-Broadway opposite Steve Martin in a revival of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Lincoln Center Theatre in 1988.

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is Rajiv Joseph's darkly comic tale narrated by a tiger held captive in the Baghdad Zoo. The play follows the intertwined lives of two American marines and one Iraqi gardener as they search through the rubble of war for friendship, redemption and a toilet seat made of gold.

The show is being produced on Broadway by Robyn Goodman, Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller and Center Theatre Group.

Rajiv Joseph is an American playwright whose plays include 'Animals Out of Paper,' which premiered at Second Stage in 2008, 'Huck & Holden,' produced at Cherry Lane Theatre, 'All This Intimacy' and 'The Leopard and the Fox.' He is the recipient of the 2009 Kesselring Fellowship from the National Arts Club, and the 2008 Paula Vogel Award for emerging playwrights presented by the Vineyard Theatre.

Robin Williams has more than 40 industry honors to his credit including four Oscar nominations and one win, two Emmy awards, four Grammys and six Golden Globes, including the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award.

In 2009, he concluded his hugely successful comedy tour entitled 'Weapons of Self Destruction.' The show was filmed over two nights at Washington, DC's DAR Constitution Hall, and premiered on HBO as the network's most successful stand-up comedy special of the year, earning three Emmy award nominations.

Williams began his career as a stand-up comedian and has created a repertoire of indelible characters, first in the hit series "Mork & Mindy" and then in numerous film roles. In 1997, Williams received Academy and Screen Actors Guild awards for his performance in "Good Will Hunting," having been previously nominated by the Academy for performances in "The Fisher King," "Dead Poets Society" and "Good Morning Vietnam." Williams' blockbuster films include "Mrs. Doubtfire," "The Birdcage," "Jumanji," "Hook," two "Night at the Museum" films; and the animated films "Aladdin," "Robots" and "Happy Feet." Having trained at the famed Juilliard School under John Houseman in New York, his other stage credits include Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot,' directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Steve Martin, and a short run in San Francisco of 'The Exonerated,' which tells the true stories of six innocent survivors of death row.

Moises Kaufman received a Tony nomination for his direction of Doug Wright's play 'I Am My Own Wife,' and a Tony nomination as playwright for '33 Variations,' seen on Broadway last season starring Jane Fonda.