Harold Perrineau, veteran TV and film actor (HBO’s “Oz,” FX’s “Sons of Anarchy”), returns to the New York stage on September 15, starring as Yermolai Alexeievitch Lopakhin, for an all-star production of Anton Chekhov’s, The Cherry Orchard. The Roundabout’s production, under the artistic direction of Todd Haimes, is playing on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre.
In the play, Lopakhin, a money-hungry merchant and the wealthiest character, is a social climber from a lower class who became bourgeoisie. Throughout the play, the character works vigorously to assist an aristocratic family, proposing to rescue their estate by permitting a portion of it to be developed into summer cottages at the cost of their renowned cherry orchard, which is notorious for its size. The production marks Perrineau’s first appearance on Broadway since starring in the 1987 return engagement of Dreamgirls, 29 years ago. The actor last appeared in the Atlantic Theater Company’s 2002 production of Blue/Orange.
The new adaptation is penned by Stephen Karam, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright who won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play for The Humans, which also originated at Roundabout before transferring to Broadway. Unlike previous productions, this one, directed by Simon Godwin (Associate Director of the Royal National Theatre in London; making his Broadway debut), is perhaps one of the more diverse productions of a Chekhov play in a commercial Broadway theatre.
Perrineau, who received a Screen Actors Guild award for his tenure on ABC’s “Lost,” will be joined by a handful of diverse actors that include Maurice Jones (Little Children Dream of God), Aaron Clifton Moten (The Flick), Ian Lassiter (An Octoroon, War Horse) and Carl Hendrick Louis (Little Children Dream of God, Sunset Baby).
Academy Award nominee Diane Lane will headline the company of actors, playing the role of Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya, a Czarist aristocratic landowner living in Russia on the brink of revolution. In the play, the character reunites her family at their estate in the countryside before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage in a bid to delay foreclosure.
The Cherry Orchard will begin preview performances on September 15, 2016, and opens officially on Sunday, October 16, 2016. This is a limited engagement through December 4, 2016 on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42nd Street). Additional casting will be announced soon.
