Michael Grandage, the British director who parlayed his success at the helm of London’s Donmar Warehouse to launch a commercial production company, will direct the staging.
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Hughie marks the second O’Neill play of the 2015-16 season, alongside Roundabout’s production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, starring Jessica Lange, Gabriel Byrne, Michael Shannon and John Gallagher Jr.
Written in 1942 and first produced in 1958, the O’Neill play is essentially a monologue piece set in a West Side midtown Manhattan hotel in summer 1928.
Whitaker, a best actor Oscar victor for “The Last King of Scotland“, will play small-time hustler Erie Smith in this short two-character drama set in the lobby of a hotel in 1928.
Further details, including the exact dates and venue for “Hughie“, have yet to be set. Casting for the show’s other role, a night clerk, will be announced soon.
Whitaker’s many film credits include Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Color of Money, Good Morning Vietnam, The Butler, and Southpaw.
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Grandage, who has also directed Evita, Frost/Nixon and 2014’s The Cripple of Inishmaan on Broadway, reunites his entire creative team from the 2010 Broadway production of Red. A 1975 double-bill (with David Scott Milton’s Duet) starred Ben Gazzara, who won a Tony nomination for his performance as Erie.
