'Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike' Heads to Broadway

NEW YORK -- Following its sold-out premiere run Off Broadway, Lincoln Center Theater's production of the Christopher Durang play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will transfer to Broadway this season, beginning previews on March 5 for a 17-week limited engagement at the Golden Theatre.

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The entire original cast will reassemble for the move, including David Hyde Pierce as the melancholy Vanya and Sigourney Weaver as his self-absorbed globe-trotting movie-star sister Masha.

Set in present-day Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Durang's comedy riffs on characters and situations lifted from the work of Anton Chekhov to examine personal choices, relationships, solitude and midlife reflection in a changing world.

REVIEW: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Directed by Nicholas Martin, the production also stars Durang regular Kristine Nielsen as the family's jittery third sibling Sonia, and Billy Magnussen as Masha's young gym-bunny boyfriend. Rounding out the cast are Genevieve Angelson and Shalita Grant.

The production marks Weaver's first time on Broadway since appearing in Durang's Sex and Longing in 1996. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1985 for featured actress in Mike Nichols' starry production of David Rabe's Hurlyburly. Pierce has been a frequent New York theater presence in his post-Frasier years; he won a Tony for lead actor in a musical in 2007 for Curtains.

Durang's play opened Nov. 12 at Lincoln Center Theater's Off Broadway space, the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre, where it closed on Jan. 20. The production follows the path of last season's LCT hit Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz, which also began at the Newhouse and moved to Broadway. The transfer makes Durang's play, along with its cast and creative team, eligible for consideration for the 2013 Tony Awards in June.

Producers on Vanya and Sonia are Joey Parnes, Larry Hirschhorn and John O'Boyle, in association with McCarter Theatre and Lincoln Center Theater. The show's official opening night is set for March 14.