Dan Stevens Joins Broadway Cast of ‘The Heiress’

NEW YORK — In what is shaping up to be one of the most promising casts to hit Broadway in the fall, Downton Abbey series regular Dan Stevens will join previously announced stars Jessica Chastain and David Strathairn in the upcoming revival of The Heiress, which has set an October start date for performances.

Moisés Kaufman (33 Variations, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) will direct the Tony-winning 1947 play by Ruth & Augustus Goetz, adapted from the Henry James novel, Washington Square. A theater and official opening date have not yet been announced.

Stevens will play Morris Townsend, whose plan to marry painfully shy Catherine Sloper (Chastain) is destroyed by her overbearing father (Strathairn).

Lead producers on the revival are Paula Wagner, Roy Furman and Stephanie P. McClelland.

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Currently shooting season three of Downton Abbey, Stevens plays the central role of Matthew Crawley. He last appeared on a New York stage opposite Rebecca Hall in Shakespeare’s As You Like It in 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Heiress will mark the British actor’s Broadway debut. 

Stevens will be seen on screen in the fall in Amy Heckerling‘s Vamps, with Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter and Sigourney Weaver; and following that, in the British indie drama Summer in February, with Dominic Cooper and Emily Browning.