Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, who each earned Oscar nominations as Tina and Ike Turner in the film What’s Love Got to Do With It, will co-star in the Pasadena Playhouse production of August Wilson’s Fences, August 25-October 1.
The production will be directed by Sheldon Epps.
Fences concerns Troy Maxson, a former star ballplayer in the Negro Leagues who now makes his living as a garbage collector. The play, which originally starred James Earl Jones, Mary Alice, and Courtney B. Vance (who is now Bassett’s husband), earned the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as four Tony Awards, including Best Play.
Bassett’s stage credits include the Broadway production of Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, the Public Theater’s production of Macbeth with Alec Baldwin, and the Guthrie’s production of His Girl Friday with Vance. Fisburne starred on Broadway in Wilson’s Two Trains Running, for which he won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Theater World Awards, as well as the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of The Lion in Winter. He is currently onstage at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in Without Walls. The pair can also be seen together onscreen in Akeelah and the Bee.
For more information, call 626-356-PLAY or visit www.pasadenaplayhouse.org