Golden Globe-winner Keri Russell, star of TV’s The Americans and Felicity as well as the movie Waitress, will join three-time Emmy-nominee Adam Driver (Girls) in a Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson’s Burn This. The production, which will be helmed by director Michael Mayer, is scheduled to open in March of 2019, with a theatre to be announced at a later date.
Keri Russell first emerged into the public’s view when she secured the title role in the 1998-2002 WB series Felicity, for which she received an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe. More recently, audiences have enjoyed Russell’s performance on the FX series The Americans. She starred as Jenna in the 2007 film Waitress, which was adapted into a hit Broadway musical. Other film credits include We Were Soldiers, Mad About Mambo, The Upside Of Anger, Million Impossible III, August Rush, The Girl In The Park, Bedtime Stories, Extraordinary Measures, Goats, Austenland, Dark Skies, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, and Free State Of Jones and the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX. Russell made her Off-Broadway debut in 2005 in 2005 in Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig.
“Burn This tells the story of four New Yorkers whose lives are uprooted by a young dancer’s accidental death. Set in downtown New York in the raw and gritty 1980s, the combustible drama explores the spiritual and emotional isolation of the dangerous, sexy, raw and demanding Pale (Adam Driver) and the modern dancer Anna (Keri Russell), and their tempestuous relationship after the two iconoclasts are brought together in the wake of a life-changing personal tragedy.”
Burn This originally premiered Off-Broadway in 1987. The production starred John Malkovich as Pale and Joan Allen as Anna. The show, a critical success, then transferred to Broadway where it played the Plymouth Theatre for 437 performances.
Mark Robinson is the author of the two-volume encyclopedia The World of Musicals, The Disney Song Encyclopedia, and The Encyclopedia of Television Theme Songs. He maintains a theater and entertainment blog at markrobinsonwrites.com.