The Heiress: Jessica Chastain to star in revival

Theatre, film and television actress Jessica Chastain will make her Broadway debut starring as 'Catherine Sloper' in a revival of Ruth Goetz's and Augustus Goetz's The Heiress, directed by Moises Kaufman, expected to arrive in the Fall of 2012 at a theatre to be announced.

Chastain's stage work includes the title role of 'Salome,' opposite Al Pacino in the 2006 Los Angeles staging of Oscar Wilde's 'Salome,' 'Othello' at the Public Theater and 'Rodney's Wife' at Playwrights Horizons.

She was recently nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actor's Guild Award for her performance as "Celia Foote" in "The Help." Her work in "The Tree of Life" and "Take Shelter" received critical acclaim and multiple awards as Best Actress from the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Chicago Film Critics Association.

Director Moisés Kaufman said, "Jessica Chastain is a great actress with chameleon-like prowess and enormous emotional intelligence; I think she's one of the best actresses of her generation. I'm thrilled to be working with her on The Heiress."

Moisés Kaufman is a two-time Tony Award-nominee as author of '33 Variations,' which he also directed on Broadway starring Jane Fonda, and as director of the Broadway production of 'I Am My Own Wife' for which he won an Obie Award and also received Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel nominations. His play 'Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde' earned him a Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway play as well as a Joe A. Callaway Award for Best Director. And his film of his play "The Laramie Project" earned him two Emmy nominations (writing and directing.)

The Heiress, adapted from the 1880 Henry James novel, "Washington Square," tells the story of 'Catherine Sloper' (Jessica Chastain), a young naive woman falls for a handsome young man who her emotionally abusive father suspects is a fortune hunter.

The revival will be produced by Paula Wagner, Roy Furman and Stephanie P. McClelland.

The 1947 Broadway premiere of The Heiress was directed by Jed Harris, and starred Wendy Hiller as 'Catherine Sloper,' Peter Cookson as 'Morris Townsend' and Basil Rathbone as 'Dr. Austin Sloper.'

The 1949 Academy Award winning movie version was adapted from the play by the Goetzes, and was directed by William Wyler, starring Olivia de Havilland as 'Catherine Sloper,' Montgomery Clift as 'Morris Townsend' and Ralph Richardson as 'Dr. Austin Sloper.' Olivia de Havilland won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Actress, with the film nominated for the 1949 Academy Award for Best Picture.

The play has been revived on Broadway three times. The last revival was in 1995, directed by Gerald Gutierrez, it starred Cherry Jones as 'Catherine Sloper,' Jon Tenney as 'Morris Townsend' and 'Philip Bosco' as 'Dr. Austin Sloper.' The production was nominated for seven 1995 Tony Awards, and won four: Best Revival; Best Director (Gerald Gutierrez); Best Actress (Cherry Jones); and Best Featured Actress (Frances Sternhagen as 'Lavinia Penniman').