Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall is headed to Broadway opposite Paul Gross in a revival of Noel Coward’s classic comedy Private Lives. Performances will begin on November 6 at the Music Box Theatre, with opening night on November 17, directed by Richard Eyre. The limited engagement is scheduled to run through February 5, 2012
In addition to Cattrall and Gross, the cast will include Simon Paisley Day, Anna Madeley and Caroline Lena Olsson.
Private Lives centers on the glamorous, rich and reckless Amanda (Cattrall) and her ex-husband Elyot (Gross). Honeymooning in the south of France with their new spouses, the two meet again across adjoining hotel balconies, rekindling their feelings for each other.
Cattrall and the Canadian-born Gross will co-star in a pre-Broadway engagement of Private Lives at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre in September. Cattrall played Amanda in Eyre’s 2010 West End production of the play opposite Matthew Macfadyen as Elyot, Lisa Dillon as Sibyl and Simon Paisley Day as Victor.
Best known for her Emmy-nominated performance as Samantha Jones in Sex and the City on the big and small screens, Cattrall appeared on Broadway in the short-lived 1986 production of Wild Honey. Her West End credits include Whose Life Is It, Anyway? and The Cryptogram.. Additional movie credits include Porky’s, Police Academy, Bonfire of the Vanities, Star Trek VI, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin and The Tiger’s Tail and The Ghost Writer.
Gross has starred in the TV series Due South, Slings and Arrows, Eastwick and Men with Brooms as well as movies such as Barney’s Version.
Private Lives has been produced seven times on Broadway since its 1931 premiere, which starred the author as Elyot, Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda, and Laurence Olivier and his then-wife Jill Esmond as Victor and Sybil. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred in a short-lived 1983 production. The most recent Broadway staging of the play was in 2002, starring Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, with 2011 Tony nominee Adam Godley as Victor.
The design team for Private Lives includes Rob Howell (set and costumes) and David Howe (lighting). The revival will be produced by Duncan C. Weldon, Paul Elliott, Theatre Royal Bath, Terri and Timothy Childs, Sonia Friedman and David Mirvish.