Driving Miss Daisy: Boyd Gaines completes cast

Four-time Tony Award-winner Boyd Gaines ('Gypsy,' 'Contact,' 'She Loves Me' and 'The Heidi Chronicles') has joined the cast of the upcoming Broadway premiere of Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Driving Miss Daisy, in the role of 'Boolie Werthan.' Gaines completes the cast of the three-character play.

Boyd Gaines is currently starting as 'Guthrie McClintic' in 'The Grand Manner' (Lincoln Center). Boyd was last seen on Broadway as 'Herbie' in 'Gypsy' for which he received his fourth Tony Award.

As previously announced, fellow Tony Award-winners James Earl Jones ('The Great White Hope' and 'Fences') and Vanessa Redgrave ('Long Day's Journey Into Night') will star in the production as 'Hoke Colburn' and 'Daisy Werthan', respectively.

Directed by David Esbjornson ('The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?'), Driving Miss Daisy will open at the John Golden Theatre on 25 Oct 2010, following previews from 7 Oct 2010, playing a sixteen-week limited engagement rhough to 29 Jan 2011.

Driving Miss Daisy: When 'Daisy Werthan' (Redgrave), a widowed, 72-year-old Jewish woman living in midcentury Atlanta, is deemed too old to drive, her son (Gaines) hires 'Hoke Colburn' (Jones), an African American man, to serve as her chauffeur. What begins as a troubled and hostile pairing, soon blossoms into a profound, life-altering friendship that transcends all the societal boundaries placed between them.

Driving Miss Daisy is being produced on Broadway by Jed Bernstein and Adam Zotovich.

The play was produced Off-Broadway by Playwright Horizons, where it played 1,195 performances at the John Houseman Theatre from 15 Apr 1987 - 3 Jun 1990. The production was directed by Ron Lagomarsino, and starred Dana Ivey as 'Daisy Werthan' and Morgan Freeman as 'Hoke Coleburn.'

Driving Miss Daisy was adapted into a screenplay, and released as a movie in 1989. Directed by Bruce Beresford, Morgan Freeman reprised his role as 'Hoke Coleburn' and was joined by actress Jessica Tandy, who played 'Daisy Werthan.' The movie was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won four. It is the only film based on an off-Broadway production ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.