Theater News

Kazee Joins Pullman and Ivey in Cast of Kennedy Center’s The Subject Was Roses

Steve Kazee has joined Bill Pullman and Judith Ivey in the cast of an upcoming production of Frank D. Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The play, to be directed by Leonard Foglia, will run January 7-29 and will open officially on January 12.

In The Subject Was Roses, World War II soldier Timmy Cleary (Kazee) returns home to find that his parents (Pullman and Ivey) are strangers to him and each other. A simple gesture leads to domestic warfare. The play won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 1965. The 1968 film version, in which Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson re-created their stage roles alongside Patricia Neal, won an Oscar for Albertson as Best Supporting Actor.

The Kennedy Center production will feature sets by Neil Patel, costumes by Jess Goldstein, lighting by Donald Holder, and sound design by David Van Tieghem. Foglia’s credits include the recent revival of On Golden Pond and Master Class.

Kazee, a recent graduate of NYU’s graduate acting program, is currently understudying Frederick Weller in the Broadway revival of Edward Albee’s Seascape. Pullman was seen on Broadway in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and has starred in such films as Independence Day and Sleepless in Seattle. Ivey is the winner of two Tony Awards for her work in Steaming and Hurlyburly.