The Royal Family plays final performance

The Manhattan Theatre Club' Broadway production of The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber and directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes, plays its final performance on 13 Dec 2009. When the show closes it will have played 26 previews and 77 regular performances.

The Royal Family opened at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on 8 Oct 2009, following previews from 15 Sep 2009, where it was originally scheduled to close on 22 Nov 2009.

The show opened to mostly good reviews: "suffused with the radiance of the pure, inexhaustible love of an ancient craft" (NY Times); "handsome, sturdy and diverting" (NY Daily News); "get rather more competence than magnificence" (Bloomberg); "effervescent... revival " (AP).

It's half past one in the fabulously cluttered Cavendish duplex in the East Fifties, and anyone who's anyone is still asleep. So begins The Royal Family, a comedy of theatrical manners, written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, whose other storied collaborations include 'Dinner at Eight' and 'Stage Door.'

The Royal Family follows the Cavendishes, the famous family of stage stars, as they go about the drama of the day: choosing scripts, dashing off to a performance, and stealing kisses with handsome beaus. But what's this business about the younger Miss Cavendish wanting to quit the stage for domestic bliss? Never, darling!

The cast features Ana Gasteyer (Kitty Dean), John Glover (Herbert Dean), Rosemary Harris (Fanny Cavendish), Jan Maxwell (Julie Cavendish), Larry Pine (Gilbert Marshall), Tony Roberts (Oscar Wolfe), Reg Rogers (Tony Cavendish), Freddy Arsenault (Perry Stewart), Kelli Barrett (Gwen Cavendish), Caroline Stefanie Clay (Della), Rufus Collins (McDermott, Gunga), David Greenspan (Jo), Anthony Newfield (Chauffeur), Henny Russell (Miss Peake), Cat Walleck (Hallboy) and John Wernke (Hallboy).

The creative team for The Royal Family will include John Lee Beatty (Scenic Design), Catherine Zuber (Costume Design), Kenneth Posner (Lighting Design) and Darron L West (Sound Design).

The Royal Family is the first production of MTC's 2009-2010 theatrical season. Other productions will include the Broadway premiere of Donald Margulies' 'Collected Stories' directed by Lynne Meadow and featuring Linda Lavin. Off-Broadway at City Center, MTC's season will include Donald Margulies' 'Time Stands Still' directed by Daniel Sullivan, 'Nightingale' written by and starring Lynn Redgrave and directed by Joseph Hardy, and the New York premiere of Polly Stenham's 'That Face.'