Cate Blanchett-Led The Present Announces Broadway Casting

The Sydney Theatre Company production of Andrew Upton's The Present, starring two-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett, will play the No venue with id 3037 exists!, producers have announced. Previews begin December 17, 2016, with opening night is set for January 8, 2017.

Blanchett heads the cast as Anna Petrovna, alongside Richard Roxburgh (Moulin Rouge) as Platonov. They will be joined by the original Australian company, made up of Anna Bamford (Maria), Andrew Buchanan (Osip), David Downer (Yegor), Eamon Farren (Kirrill), Martin Jacobs (Alexei), Brandon McClelland (Dimitri), Jacqueline McKenzie (Sophia), Marshall Napier (Ivan), Susan Prior (Sasha), Chris Ryan (Sergei), and Toby Schmitz (Nikolai). Everyone in the cast will make their Broadway debuts.

Directed by John Crowley (Brooklyn), the production had its world premiere in 2015. Inspired by Anton Chekhov's Platonov, Upton's adaptation is set in the mid-1990s in an old country house where friends gather to celebrate the birthday of Anna Petrovna, an independent but compromised widow. At the center is the acerbic and witty Platonov, along with his wife, his former students, and their friends and partners. Boiling away inside their comfortable appearances is a mess of unfinished, unresolved relationships, fueled by 20 years of denial, regret, and thwarted desire.

The production features scenic and costume design by Alice Babidge, lighting design by Nick Schlieper, and sound design and musical compositions by Stefan Gregory.