The House of Blue Leaves: Ben Stiller & Edie Falco?
Deadline.com reports that Ben Stiller and Edie Falco looks set to star on Broadway in a revival of John Guare's Tony Award-winning comedy The House of Blue Leaves, expected to arrive on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in the Spring of 2011. Scott Rudin is set to produce.
The House of Blue Leaves is set in Queens, NY in 1965, during the visit of Pope Paul VI. Artie Shaughnessy (Stiller) is a zoo keeper who hopes one day to make it big as a successful songwriter. While struggling to have his song writing talent recognized, Artie has to cope with his wife 'Bananas' (Edie Falco) - a schizophrenic who struggles to keep in touch with reality; his demanding mistress 'Bunnie'; his son 'Ronnie' - who goes AWOL from the army with plans to blow up the pope; and the unexpected arrival in his apartment of a deaf movie star and three nuns in search of a TV.
If the production goes ahead this will be Stiller's second outing on Broadway. The movie actor made his Broadway debut when he starred in the original production of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves (1986) playing Artie's' son, 'Ronnie' - whose plans to blow up the Pope go astray with surprising consequences. John Mahoney and Swoosie Kurtz starred in that production as 'Artie' and 'Bananas'
The play was adapted into a TV movie in 1987 which saw Stiller, Mahoney and Kurtz recreate the roles they first originated on Broadway.
Stiller is a prolific fim actor whose many credits include "Night at the Museum 1 & 2," "Greenberg ," "The Heartbreak Kid," "School for Scoundrels," "Meet the Fockers," "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "Starsky & Hutch," "Meet the Parents" and many more.
Edie Falco was nominated for the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her leading role in the hit Showtime comedy "Nurse Jackie." She won three Emmy and two Golden Globe Awards for her role as "Carmela Soprano" in "The Sopranos," for which she also won the 2001 American Film Institute's award for Female Television Actor of the Year. Falco made her Broadway debut in 'Sideman,' which she originated in its off-Broadway production. She made her London stage debut in the West End premiere of 'Sideman,' and thereafter opened the London production of 'The Vagina Monologues.' She also starred on Broadway opposite Stanley Tucci in the revival of 'Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune' and opposite Brenda Blethyn in the first revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, 'Night, Mother.'
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