Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt’ Sets Fall 2022 Broadway Engagement

Greg Evans
·2 min read
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Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning Leopoldstadt directed by Patrick Marber will play a limited Broadway engagement this fall, producers announced today.

Leopoldstadt, which one the Olivier for Best New Play in 2020, will begin performances at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre on Wednesday, September 14, with an official opening on Sunday, October 2.

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The announcement was made by producers Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, and Lorne Michaels.

Described as one of Stoppard’s most personal plays, Leopoldstadt opened in London’s West End to critical acclaim on January 25, 2020. A planned extension due to demand was curtailed due to the Covid lockdown seven weeks later. In late 2021, the play returned for a further 12-week engagement. Both runs sold out and Leopoldstadt received the Olivier Award for Best New Play in October 2020.

The play will mark Stoppard’s 19th play on Broadway since his groundbreaking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead opened 55 years ago. Stoppard has won four Best Play Tony Awards, more than any other playwright in history.

Casting for Leopoldstadt will be announced at a later date.

Set in Vienna, Leopoldstadt takes its title from the Jewish quarter. The synopsis: “This passionate drama of love and endurance begins in the last days of 1899 and follows one extended family deep into the heart of the 20th Century. Full of his customary wit and beauty, Tom Stoppard’s late work spans fifty years of time over two hours.”

“Any new Stoppard play is something to treasure,” said Sonia Friedman, but Leopoldstadt is truly a gift and our greatest living playwright’s most intensely personal piece. Leopoldstadt is a passionate drama of enduring love and familial bonds that asks us to bear witness to our pasts, no matter how painful that might be. I so look forward to bringing Patrick Marber’s epic and truly extraordinary production to North America at a moment when it feels more necessary than ever.”

Said Marber, “It was my great pleasure to direct a revival of Tom’s early play Travesties on Broadway in 2018. At the time he mentioned that he was just beginning to write something new. And here it is, his mighty Leopoldstadt. I’ve loved Tom’s plays since boyhood. I studied his work at university, he inspired me as a fledgling playwright. To be the director of his new play is one heck of an honour.”

Leopoldstadt’s creative team includes scenic design by Richard Hudson, costume design by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, lighting design by Neil Austin, sound and original music by Adam Cork, video design by Isaac Madge, and movement by Emily Jane Boyle.

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