Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall Among Stellar Cast Lined Up for Broadway’s ‘The Realistic Joneses’

NEW YORK – A plum cast has been assembled for the Broadway transfer of Will Eno‘s dark comedy, The Realistic Joneses, which will bring together Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei.

Set in a small rural town, the play observes the intertwining lives of two neighboring couples who live in identical houses and share the same last name, as they are forced to choose between perfect fantasies and imperfect realities. It premiered in May last year at Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Conn., in an acclaimed staging directed by Sam Gold.

Reviewing that production in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood called it a “tender, funny, terrific new play.”

Gold, who directed Theresa Rebeck‘s Seminar and William Inge‘s Picnic on Broadway and has a long list of lauded off-Broadway productions to his name, also will stage the New York transfer of Eno’s play. However, Letts is the sole holdover from the original cast.

PHOTOS: Broadway Musicals That Have Sung Their Way to the Big Screen 

Firm dates and a theater have not yet been announced for the production, which is expected to begin previews in February for a late-March official opening. 

Producers are Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jam Theatricals, Stacey Mindich, Susan Gallin and Mary Lu Roffe.

Richards and Frankel are lead producers on the current revival of The Glass Menagerie, which opened last month to rapturous reviews and strong business; they also recently announced plans to bring in Robert Schenkkan‘s drama All the Way this season, starring Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson.

Collette previously appeared on Broadway in 2000 in the musical The Wild Party. An Emmy winner for United States of Tara, she is currently on movie screens opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini in Enough Said, and she stars in the CBS series Hostages.

PHOTOS: ‘I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers’ Opening Night

Fresh off his hit Showtime series Dexter, Hall’s last Broadway stints were also in musicals, Chicago and Cabaret. He has a key role in the Sony Pictures Classics release Kill Your Darlings, which opens this week.

An Oscar winner for My Cousin Vinny, Tomei appeared on Broadway opposite Quentin Tarantino in Wait Until Dark, with Al Pacino in Salome, and in a 2008 revival of Caryl Churchill‘s Top Girls.

Letts has the rare distinction of winning Tony Awards as both a playwright and a lead actor, the former in 2008 for August: Osage County, and the latter this year for last season’s revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He also wrote the adapted screenplay for the Weinstein Company’s upcoming screen version of August: Osage County, with a starry ensemble headed by Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.

Eno’s previous plays have garnered admiration off Broadway, including Thom Pain (based on nothing), Title and Deed and Middletown. The Realistic Joneses will mark the playwright’s Broadway debut.