The Homecoming: Eve Best to play Ruth

The New York Times and Variety both report that Eve Best is to play Ruth in the 40th anniversary revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, joining the previously announced Ian McShane, Ra�l Esparza and Michael McKean.

The drama opens at the Cort Theatre on 9 Dec 2007, following previews from 23 Nov 2007, for a 20-week limited engagement ending on 13 Apr 2008.

Eve Best was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play when she made ner Broadway debut earlier this year as Josie Hogan in A Moon For the Misbegootten.

The Homecoming concerns the ultimate dysfunctional family, presided over by its patriarch Max (McShane). Living under his dilapidated roof are his younger brother Sam (McKean), and two of his sons: Lenny (Esparza), the town pimp, and Joey, a boxer-in-training. Tensions begin to flair with the arrival of Max's eldest son Teddy, who returns home after six years with his new wife Ruth (Eve Best). Seduction, betrayal, and divisiveness ensue, as the family welcomes the homecoming of its estranged brother and vies for the attention of his dangerously alluring wife."

This will be the second revival of The Homecoming on Broadway. The play had its Broadway premiere at the Musix Box Theatre in 1967, and its first revival in 1991 at The Criterion Center Stage Right (Theatre now closed).

Pinter, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005, is the author of The Birthday Party, Betrayal, Old Times, No Man's Land, The Caretaker, The Dumb Waiter, Ashes to Ashes, and Celebration.

Further casting is still to be announced.

The design team features Eugene Lee (Sets), Kenneth Posner (lighting), and Jess Goldstein (costumes). The play is being produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel.