Calista Flockhart on Returning to the Stage After 20 Years: 'It Feels Pretty Wonderful'

Stephanie Wenger
·2 min read
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Calista Flockhart
Calista Flockhart
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Jeff Lorch

Calista Flockhart is making her return to the stage after two decades.

The actress, 57, stars alongside Zachary Quinto, Graham Phillips and Aimee Carrero in The Geffen Playhouse's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

The 60th anniversary production of the Tony Award-winning play by Edward Albee began previews on April 19 and officially opens on April 28 at the Gil Cates Theater in Los Angeles, California.

Zachary Quinto, Aimee Carrero, Graham Phillips, Calista Flockhart
Zachary Quinto, Aimee Carrero, Graham Phillips, Calista Flockhart

Justin Bettman

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The Ally McBeal alum opened up about her return to theater in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, published on Thursday.

"Whenever I did a play, I was usually the ingénue and one of the youngest people in the cast. And now I'm definitely the oldest person in the cast. And I am not the ingénue," she explained. "And that's really fun and exciting. I could never play Martha without all the life experience. So it feels pretty wonderful."

The play —directed by Gordon Greenberg — chronicles a married middle-aged couple, Martha (Flockhart) and George (Quinto), as they reveal dark secrets during drinks with a younger pair, Nick (Phillips) and Honey (Carrero), at their home.

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Flockhart also shared how theater differs from being in front of the camera.

"I love theater. I love that it's happening in the moment right in front of your eyes. I love going to the theater. I love being in a play. I love, obviously, that it's live," she told the Times.

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"There's no editor and it's an actor's medium. You're on the stage, the director's gone and it's just very exciting to me," she added.

Flockhart revealed that she asked director Mike Nichols questions about his 1966 film adaptation of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? when she worked with him on The Birdcage in 1996.

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"I probably annoyed him. But I did it anyway. And we talked about it a lot," she shared.