Frank Langella to Play ‘King Lear’ in New York

NEW YORK — Every great classical actor wants a crack at King Lear.

Three-time Tony Award winner Frank Langella will get his shot at the doomed ruler, arguably the most demanding role in the Shakespearean canon, in a production premiering as part of the Chichester Festival in the fall before transferring to New York.

Staged by Chichester associate director Angus Jackson, the production will bow at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, from Oct. 31 through Nov. 30. It will then travel to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, playing Jan. 7 through Feb. 9, 2014.

A stage veteran of more than four decades’ experience, Langella won his first Tony Award as featured actor in a play in 1975 for Edward Albee‘s Seascape. He won the same award in 2002 for Arthur Penn‘s Broadway production of Ivan Turgenev‘s Fortune’s Fool and won lead actor in 2007 for Peter Morgan‘s Frost/Nixon.

Langella reprised his role as Richard Nixon in the film adaptation of that play the following year, earning an Oscar nomination for best actor.

His upcoming screen work includes roles in Grace of Monaco, with Nicole Kidman; Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, directed by Stephen Frears; and Draft Day, opposite Kevin Costner. 

Langella’s memoir Dropped Names was published by Harper to considerable acclaim in 2012.

The addition of King Lear to New York’s winter theater schedule adds to an already rich roster of Shakespeare this season.

Previously announced Broadway productions include Romeo and Juliet, with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad; Mark Rylance headlining a double bill of the all-male Shakespeare’s Globe company in Twelfth Night and Richard III; and Ethan Hawke in Macbeth. Romeo and Juliet is also being staged Off Broadway in the fall, with Elizabeth Olsen and Finn Wittrock.