Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt’ Sets Fall 2022 Broadway Engagement
07.06.2022 - 17:53
/ deadline.com
Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning Leopoldstadt directed by Patrick Marber will play a limited Broadway engagement this fall, producers announced today.
Leopoldstadt, which one the Olivier for Best New Play in 2020, will begin performances at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre on Wednesday, September 14, with an official opening on Sunday, October 2.
The announcement was made by producers Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, and Lorne Michaels.
Described as one of Stoppard’s most personal plays, Leopoldstadt opened in London’s West End to critical acclaim on January 25, 2020. A planned extension due to demand was curtailed due to the Covid lockdown seven weeks later. In late 2021, the play returned for a further 12-week engagement. Both runs sold out and Leopoldstadt received the Olivier Award for Best New Play in October 2020.
The play will mark Stoppard’s 19th play on Broadway since his groundbreaking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead opened 55 years ago. Stoppard has won four Best Play Tony Awards, more than any other playwright in history.
Casting for Leopoldstadt will be announced at a later date.
Set in Vienna, Leopoldstadt takes its title from the Jewish quarter. The synopsis: “This passionate drama of love and endurance begins in the last days of 1899 and follows one extended family deep into the heart of the 20th Century. Full of his customary wit and beauty, Tom Stoppard’s late work spans fifty years of time over two hours.”
“Any new Stoppard play is something to treasure,” said Sonia Friedman, but Leopoldstadt is truly a gift and our greatest living playwright’s most intensely personal piece. Leopoldstadt is a passionate drama of enduring love and familial bonds that asks us to bear witness to our pasts, no matter