Joe Mantello to Star in Planned Broadway Run of The Normal Heart
(© Tristan Fuge)
Joe Mantello will star as Ned Weeks in a planned Broadway production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, according to a report in The New York Times. Producer Daryl Roth is working with Kramer, and the revival is aiming to arrive on Broadway in March or April 2011. No further information about casting or creative team is available at this time.
Mantello received a Tony Award nomination for his performance as Louis in the original production of Angels in America. Since that time, he has worked primarily as a director, winning Tony Awards for Assassins and Take Me Out. Among his other directorial credits are Wicked, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Love! Valour! Compassion!
The actor played the role of Ned in a one-night-only benefit reading of the play last month. That performance was produced by Roth, and directed by Joel Grey. It also featured included Glenn Close, Victor Garber, John Benjamin Hickey, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Patrick Wilson.
The Normal Heart focuses on a group of gay men in New York sounding alarms about the AIDS crisis as it began in the early 1980s. The play opened at the Public Theater in 1985 and was later seen at the theater in a 2004 revival.
