Charles Sykes/Associated PressScarlett JohanssonA new Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is in the works for the spring of 2013, with Scarlett Johansson starring as Maggie the Cat and Chris Pine (“Star Trek”) and the Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Locker,” “The Town”) among the actors under consideration to play her alcoholic husband, Brick, according to theater executives with knowledge of the project.
Ms. Johansson, who won a Tony Award for featured actress in 2010 playing the sheltered niece in “A View From the Bridge,” has said publicly that she is negotiating a return to Broadway as Maggie in Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play from 1955 about the disintegration of a wealthy Southern family. Mr. Renner, who is one of her co-stars in the recent film “The Avengers,” has been mentioned by Hollywood media outlets as a possible Brick. But the theater executives with knowledge of the project – who spoke on condition of anonymity because casting is confidential – said that Mr. Pine was now a leading contender to play Brick and that no final decisions on the role had been made.
The lead producer of the revival, Stuart Thompson, declined to be interviewed on Thursday; a production spokesman, Chris Boneau, said that casting for Brick and the roles of Big Daddy and Big Mama have not been finalized. The revival’s director, theater and performance dates will not be announced until plans to mount the production are official, which will depend in part on the stars’ availability.
The revival would be the third “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway in the last decade, a highly unusual rate of return visits for a play; “Cat” ran in the 2003-2004 season with Ashley Judd and Jason Patric, and in the spring of 2008 in an all-black production starring Anika Noni Rose, Terrence Howard, James Earl Jones as Big Daddy and Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama. Both revivals were popular with audiences; neither won any Tony Awards.
But when a major movie star like Ms. Johansson wants to play a juicy role in a play that is a proven audience favorite, the frequency of the revivals is beside the point. Moreover, Ms. Johansson and the producer Mr. Thompson worked well together on her Broadway debut in “A View From the Bridge” and came away happy and eager to work together again (she won a Tony, after all).
Mr. Pine is best known for movie roles, particularly the lead part of James T. Kirk in the hit 2009 film reboot of the “Star Trek” franchise; he is reprising the role in a sequel that is expected to be released next summer. Mr. Pine trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and has starred in several major stage productions in Los Angeles, including “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” “Farragut North” and “Fat Pig”; he has never performed on Broadway. Mr. Pine’s publicist declined to comment on the “Cat” revival.
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