Matthew Broderick and Catalina Sandino Moreno star in The New Group’s Off-Broadway world premiere of Kenneth Lonergan’s The Starry Messenger. Lonergan directs his own work, which begins after a two-day delay to allow for a cast change. The opening is tentatively scheduled for Nov 23. The run at Theatre Row is set to play through Dec 12.
Broderick and Moreno are joined in the cast by J. Smith Cameron, Stephanie Cannon, Kieran Culkin, Merwin Goldsmith, Grant Shaud and Missy Yager. (Goldsmith replaced the previously announced Jonathan Hadary.)
Playwright Lonergan has stated the play “follows an astronomy teacher whose midlife crisis is thrown into relief by an unexpected affair that changes everything. It’s set in 1995, the last year before the (Hayden) planetarium — one of the great NYC institutions — was torn down.”

On the inspiration for The Starry Messenger, Lonergan said, in production notes, that the work “dates back to an astronomy course at The Hayden Planetarium that Matthew Broderick and I took as high school students growing up in New York City.” He penned the new play specifically for Broderick.
Broderick has teamed with Lonergan previously on the films “You Can Count on Me” and the forthcoming “Margaret.” The actor, who won Tony Awards for his work in Brighton Beach Memoirs and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, was last seen on Broadway in The Philanthropist. Other credits include The Producers, The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues, Night Must Fall and Torch Song Trilogy. His various film credits include “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Glory,” “The Cable Guy,” “Election,” “The Lion King” (in voice) and “Then She Found Me.”

The Colombian-born Moreno earned a 2005 Academy Award nomination (among other accolades) for her role as a pregnant teen that becomes a drug mule in “Maria Full of Grace.” Moreno has also appeared on film in Ethan Hawke’s “The Hottest State” as well as “Paris, je t’aime,” “ Love in the Time of Cholera,” “Che” and “Fast Food Nation.”
The design team includes Derek McLane (set), Mattie Ullrich (costume), Jason Lyons (lighting) and Shane Rettig (sound).
The Starry Messenger marks Lonergan’s first return to the New York stage since 2001’s Lobby Hero. Other works include The Waverly Gallery, This Is Our Youth and the screenplays to “Gangs of New York” and “The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.”
The New Group season will continue in January with a revival of Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, directed by Ethan Hawke and the world premiere of the new musical The Kid based on the book by Dan Savage. New Group artistic director Scott Elliott will stage the latter penned by Andy Monroe (music), Jack Lechner (lyrics) and Michael Zam (book).

Also:
NEW YORK: Actress Scarlett Johansson will make her Broadway debut starring in a revival of American playwright Arthur Miller’s drama “A View from the Bridge,” the show’s organizers said on Monday.
Amid a growing trend of Hollywood stars appearing in Broadway plays, Johansson, 24, will appear on the Great White Way opposite actor Liev Schreiber in the drama set in 1950s America about a Brooklyn dockyard worker obsessed with his 17-year-old niece, to be played by Johansson.
Previews will begin Dec 28 and the show will run for 14 weeks.
Johansson’s list of films include “The Horse Whisperer”, “Lost in Translation” and Woody Allen’s “Match Point” in 2005. She also released an album this year with US singer Pete Yorn. Schreiber has already appeared on Broadway several times, including winning a Tony award, as well as in films.
Other high-profile film actor’s to have appeared on Broadway this year include Jude Law, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Sienna Miller and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Strong ticket sales in the 2008/2009 Broadway season have been credited to the concentration of big name stars and Broadway producers have said it is now essential to have Hollywood stars to ensure big profits in plays on Broadway.

NEW YORK: The ’60s will live again on Broadway next spring in a revival “Promises, Promises,” the musical based on the Academy Award-winning movie “The Apartment.”
The musical will star Sean Hayes as an ambitious insurance company employee who lends his apartment to company executives for romantic flings and Kristin Chenoweth as his love interest.
Producer John Gore said the production will open April 25, 2010, at the Broadway Theatre with preview performances beginning March 28.
“Promises, Promises” features a book by Neil Simon and a score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The musical will be directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford. Among its best known songs are “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” made popular by Dionne Warwick; “Knowing When to Leave” and the title tune.
Hayes, who will be making his Broadway debut, is best known for playing Jack on the television series “Will & Grace.” Chenoweth last appeared on Broadway in the 2006 revival of “The Apple Tree” and was Glinda in the original cast of “Wicked.”
The original “Promises, Promises,” which starred Jerry Orbach and Jill O’Hara, opened on Broadway in 1968 and ran for more than 1,200 performances. The film, which won a best-picture Oscar, starred Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray.

LONDON: Five leading British theatrical companies have signed on to a new online service, Digital Theatre, that will make stage productions available for high-definition download.
Stage director Robert Delamere and producer Tom Shaw, partners in Altered States Media, founded the company, which launched Monday with the English Touring Theatre production of “Far From the Madding Crowd’’ in a new adaptation by Mark Healy. Downloads cost £8.99  ($14.69).
The Young Vic will follow with a production of Clare Bayley’s “The Container’’ in association with Amnesty International. The Almeida Theatre, the Royal Court and the Royal Shakespeare Company will also participate, and the venture has the support of UK unions Equity and BECTU.
Delamere and Shaw said they aim to make digitaltheatre.com, which they said works on all major browsers and operating systems, “the focal point for theatre-based entertainment online.’’ (Agencies)

By Ernio Hernandez