The performance schedule for the upcoming Off-Broadway revival of David Rabe's Tony Award-winning play Sticks and Bones, starring Richard Chamberlain, Holly Hunter and Bill Pullman, has been announced. Previews of The New Group's production begin at the Off-Broadway Pershing Square Signature Center on October 21, with opening night set for November 6. The engagement is scheduled to close December 14.
Directed by Scott Elliott, founding Artistic Director of The New Group, Sticks and Bones is the first production in the company's 20th anniversary season. It will be followed by the New York premiere of Cynthia Nixon's directorial debut with Rasheeda Speaking by Joel Drake Johnson, featuring Dianne Wiest and Tonya Pinkins (previews begin January 2015), and then the world premiere of The Spoils written by and featuring Jesse Eisenberg and directed by Elliott (previews begin May 2015).
Bill Pullman ("Independence Day") appeared in The New Group's 2013-2014 season in the New York premiere of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian, co-starring with Ed Harris, Glenne Headly, Amy Madigan and Juliet Brett.
Holly Hunter's stage appearances have been few, but she has won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and two Emmys. She made her Broadway debut replacing Mary Beth Hurt in Beth Henley's long-running Crimes of the Heart (1981-83), and appeared Off-Broadway in Henley's The Miss Firecracker Contest as well as its 1989 film adaptation, "Miss Firecracker."
Richard Chamberlain, though best known for his screen work ("Dr. Kildare," "The Thorn Birds," "Centennial," "The Three Musketeers," "The Towering Inferno"), has had an extensive stage career over many decades. In the 1960s he worked in repertory theater in England, playing Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. In 2005 he played the title role in the Broadway National Tour of Scrooge: The Musical. In between came Broadway appearances in The Night of the Iguana, Blithe Spirit, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.
Also appearing in Sticks and Bones are Nadia Gan, Morocco Omari, Ben Schnetzer and Raviv Ullman.
Sticks and Bones won the Outer Critics Circle and Tony Awards for Best Play in 1972. It tells the Vietnam-era story of the return of an American soldier from the war, blinded, and the havoc his return wreaks on his family.
Hint: the parents in this black comedy are named Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Although it's a safe bet that no Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are returning to Ozzie and Harriet-type families today, the play is likely to resonate with audiences again in the aftermath of more years-long wars.
