Kristine Nielsen Joins James Earl Jones on Broadway

The previously announced Broadway revival of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize winning drama You Can't Take It With You has now announced a Broadway home. The production will open at the Longacre Theatre on 28 September 2014, following previews from 26 August 2014.

Joining the previously announced James Earl Jones will be Tony Award nominee Kristine Nielsen, with further casting yet to be confirmed. It has also been announced that Tony Award Winner Jason Robert Brown will compose original music for the production, which will be directed by Scott Ellis, the Associate Artistic Director of the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Kaufman and Hart's play follows the Sycamores and the Kirbys - two completely different families whose worlds collide when their children become engaged. James Earl Jones plays Grandpa Vanderhof, leader of a happily eccentric gang of snake collectors, cunning revolutionaries, ballet dancers and skyrocket makers. As the youngest daughter brings her fiancé and his buttoned-up parents over for dinner, fireworks start to fly.

Kristine Nielsen's Broadway credits include: 'Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike' (Tony Nomination), 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson', 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', 'Spring Awakening', 'A Streetcar Named Desire', 'The Green Bird', 'Jackie', and 'The Iceman Cometh'.

James Earl Jones is a veteran to the Broadway stage and won Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play for 'The Great White Hope' (1969) and 'Fences' (1987). He was also nominated in the same category for his performances in 'On Golden Pond' (2005) and 'Gore Vidal's The Best Man' (2012) and nominated for an Olivier Award for his role in 'A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' in London's West End.

The original production of the play opened at the Booth Theater on 14 December 1936 and ran for 837 performances, taking home the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

You Can't Take It With You will be produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jam Theatricals, Dominion Pictures, Gutterman Chernoff, Terry Schnuck, Caiola Productions, Gabrielle Palitz, R&D Theatricals, SunnySpot Productions, Jessica Genick and Will Trice, in association with Roundabout Theatre Company.

Public booking for the production opens on 11 June 2014.

- by Dom O'Hanlon