Shirley Knight to Star in Off-Broadway’s Cycling Past the Matterhorn

Tony Award winner Shirley Knight will star in Deborah Grimberg’s comedy Cycling Past the Matterhorn, which will play a limited, 12-week engagement at The Harold Clurman Theatre (410 West 42nd Street on Theatre Row) beginning September 20. The production, directed by Eleanor Holdridge, will officially open on September 29.

Set in contemporary London, the play is about Amy, a young sidewalk psychic who earns her modest living forecasting the troubled lives of the British public. Amy’s eccentric mother, Esther (played by Knight), has recently been left by her husband and has just discovered she is slowly going blind. Fearing she will be stuck as Esther’s caretaker, Amy considers marrying Doug, her American boyfriend, to escape the predicament; meanwhile Esther decides to join a cycling excursion in Switzerland to see the mountains while she still can. The play had its world premiere as part of the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival.

The cast will also feature Obie Award winner Brenda Wehle as Anita, and Nina Jacques as Joanne, with the roles of Amy and Doug still to be cast. The show will have scenic design by Beowolf Borrit, costume design by Kiki Smith, lighting design by Les Dickit, and sound design and original compositions by Scott Killian.

Knight received a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a play for her work in 1976’s Kennedy’s Children. Her other Broadway credits include Three Sisters and The Young Man From Atlanta for which she received a Tony nomination.
She has been twice nominated for the Academy Award, for the film versions of William Inge’s The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth. She won an Emmy Award for Indictment: The McMartin Trial, and will be seen this season on the hit ABC drama Desperate Housewives. Knight’s daughter, actress Kaitlin Hopkins is also appearing Off-Broadway in The Great American Trailer Park Musical.