Theater News

Amber Tamblyn to Star in Broadway Premiere of Beth Henley’s The Miss Firecracker Contest

Tony Award winner Judith Ivey to make Broadway directorial debut with play about an eccentric Southern family.

Amber Tamblyn
Amber Tamblyn

Emmy Award nominee Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia) will make her Broadway debut in a new production of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley’s The Miss Firecracker Contest, to be produced in spring 2013. Tony Award winner Judith Ivey (The Heiress) will direct the production at a theater yet to be announced.

In the play, Tamblyn will play Carnelle Scott, a Southern orphan living in Mississippi, who hopes that winning her town’s annual Miss Firecracker Contest will salvage her tarnished reputation. However, the unexpected arrival of her eccentric brother and cousin threatens to derail her plans to win the contest and escape Brookhaven. The piece debuted at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1984 and was later turned into a 1989 feature film.

Tamblyn, the daughter of West Side Story star Russ Tamblyn, has been a working actress for over 15 years. She first gained national fame as Emily Bowen-Quartermaine on the ABC daytime drama General Hospital. Tamblyn later played the title role on CBS’ drama, Joan of Arcadia, for which she received an Emmy nomination, and was featured on FOX’s hit series House. Her film credits include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, 127 Hours, and the soon-to-be-released Django Unchained.

Ivey is making her Broadway directorial debut with the production. She has directed numerous regional and off-Broadway shows, including Vanities, Secrets of a Soccer Mom, and The Butcher of Baraboo. She will also direct a benefit staged reading of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias in New York on Monday, December 3. Ivey received Tony Awards for her work as an actress in Steaming and Hurlyburly.

Henley has had two previous plays produced on Broadway: Crimes of the Heart, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and The Wake Of Jamey Foster. Her many other works include Family Week, Impossible Marriage, and The Jacksonian.