Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald (Shuffle Along, Lady Day) will return to Broadway to star in a revival of Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, this May, according to Deadline. She will be joined by Michael Shannon as her “Johnny”; the two-hander production will be directed by Arin Arbus who is making her Broadway directorial debut.
The strictly limited engagement will hit the Broadway stage at a Shubert theater that has yet to be announced and will play for 16-weeks beginning previews in May. The engagement marks McNally’s 80th birthday.
The play, a two-hander, is about a pair of co-workers trying to figure out how they wish to relate to each other after a satisfying sexual encounter.
The previous Broadway staging in 2002 starred Edie Falco, and Stanley Tucci and the movie version starred Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer in 1991. The play originally premiered Off-Broadway in 1987 starring Kathy Bates and F. Murray Abraham.
The Frankie and Johnny creative team will include Riccardo Hernandez (Sets), Emily Rebholz (Costumes), Natasha Katz (Lighting), Nevin Steinberg (Sound), J. Jared Janas (Hair, Wig, and Makeup), Laurie Goldfeder (Production Stage Manager) and 101 Productions, Ltd. (General Manager).
