Theater News

Kathleen Chalfant, John Glover, Mary Beth Hurt to Star in McCarter Theatre’s A Delicate Balance

Award-winning performers will tackle Edward Albee’s Pulitzer-winning drama about suburban disquiet.

John Glover
John Glover

Tony Award winner John Glover (Love! Valour! Compassion!), Tony-nominated actresses Kathleen Chalfant (Angels in America), Mary Beth Hurt (Crimes of the Heart), Francesca Faridany (The 39 Steps), Roberta Maxwell (Ivanov), and James A. Stephens (45 Seconds From Broadway) will star in a revival of Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Delicate Balance, slated to run January 18-February 17 at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. Tony-nominated director Emily Mann (Having Our Say) will direct the production.

Albee’s drama unfolds in an American suburb, where a family’s already precarious life is shaken by the arrival of unexpected guests, who plan to stay indefinitely.

The production will feature set design by Daniel Ostling, costume design by Jennifer von Mayrhauser, and lighting by Lap Chi Chu,

Glover, who will play Tobias, won his Tony for Terrence McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion! and received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Waiting for Godot, opposite Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane. His many other Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman, The Royal Family, and The Drowsy Chaperone. He also has received an Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of Lionel Luthor on Smallville.

Chalfant, who will play Agnes, has received Obie Awards for her performance in Wit and for sustained achievement. Her many Broadway credits include Angels in America, Racing Demon, and M. Butterfly, and she was recently seen off-Broadway in Red Dog Howls. Her film and television credits include Kinsey, Rescue Me, and The Guardian.

Hurt, who will play Claire, has received Tony Award nominations for Crimes of the Heart, Benefactors, and Trelawny of the ‘Wells’. She played the role of Julia in the 1996 Broadway revival of A Delicate Balance. Her big-screen work includes her BAFTA-nominated performance in Interiors as well as such films as Six Degrees of Separation and Affliction.

Albee’s other Pulitzer Prize-winning works include Seascape and Three Tall Women. In addition he has won Tony Awards for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?.

Mann, artistic director of the McCarter, has also helmed such Broadway plays as Having Our Say, for which she received a Tony nomination, Anna in the Tropics, and last season’s revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.