Blair Underwood To Make Broadway Debut in A Streetcar Named Desireby Wilson Morales
June 16 2011
Front Row Productions (Stephen Byrd, Alia Jones) is proud to announce that the role of Stanley Kowalski, in their upcoming Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Emily Mann, will be played by 2-time Golden Globe nominated actor Blair Underwood. This production is slated to hit the boards, Spring of 2012. Theatre TBA.
Underwood recently starred in the now-cancelled NBC series, ‘The Event.’
Streetcar was last seen on Broadway in 2005 starring Natasha Richardson, Amy Ryan and John C, Reilly. Front Row Production’s multi-racial production of A Streetcar Named Desire is a follow-up to their highly successful Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which starred Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose and James Earl Jones and was directed by Debbie Allen. The production subsequently moved to London’s West End (with Jones and Rashad joined by Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, and Adrian Lester as Brick) where it was honored with the “What’s Onstage” and the prestigious “Olivier” awards for Best Revival.
Set against the backdrop of New Orleans’ gritty French Quarter, Tennessee Williams‘ Pulitzer Prize winning drama, A Streetcar Named Desire tells the tale of former school teacher and socialite Blanche DuBois, as she’s forced to move in with her sister Stella and her animalistic husband Stanley (Blair Underwood). But the fragile, Blanche quickly gets a gritty life lesson in the seamy, steamy underbelly of 1940’s New Orleans.
Underwood’s theater credits include his 2004 workshop/tour of his one-man show IM4: From the Mountaintop to Hip Hop. The play, which he created and conceived and was written by his brother Frank Underwood, was the story of a rap mogul who gets gunned down. During his heavenly journey, the mogul meets the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Underwood played eight characters in all. Other theater credits include the New York revival of the award-winning musical, Purlie opposite Anika Noni Rose, Measure for Measure, at the 1993 New York Shakespeare Festival, El Negro en Peru, The Game of Love and Chance, and Love Letters opposite Alfre Woodard.
