‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’ 2017 Broadway Revival To Be Directed By Sam Gold

Tony winner Sam Gold (Fun Home, Romeo + Juliet, An Enemy of the People) is attached to direct a Broadway revival of the Tennessee Williams masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for spring 2027, producer Seaview announced today.

Seaview, the prolific Broadway producer behind The Fear of 13, Every Brilliant Thing and numerous others that often star big-name performers from film, TV and the stage, acquired the revival rights in a competitive situation from the Williams Estate’s new custodians at International Literary Properties.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof will reunite Gold and Seaview following their collaboration on the record-breaking Broadway runs of An Enemy of the People (starring Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli) and Romeo + Juliet (with Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler). The engagement is planned for a strictly limited engagement in spring 2027.

Casting and additional creative team will be announced at a later date.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the pinnacle of what the theatre can do,” said Gold in a statement. “Two of the greatest roles for actors in the canon, delivered to us by the world’s most original playwright, at the very height of his poetic powers, exploring themes that feel as shockingly honest and blood boiling today as they did 70 years ago. I couldn’t be more excited to bring this masterpiece back to New York next season.”

Added Greg Nobile Seaview’s co-founder and CEO, “It’s been such a gift to be making work with Sam Gold over the last four years. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof will mark our fifth production together, and I am certain Sam’s vision to bring Tennessee’s extraordinary and timeless characters to life next season will once again thrill and delight audiences.”

ILP Theatrical CEO said, “We’re thrilled to partner with Sam and Greg and their teams on this production. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is among Williams’ most iconic works, and as such we’ve taken great care to place it in the right hands for its return to New York after fourteen years. We’re so excited for audiences to see Sam’s vision come to life on Broadway next season.”

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof debuted on Broadway in 1955 with a cast Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara and Burl Ives playing characters that would become iconic in the American theater. The play, which won the Pulitzer Prize that year, is set on a prosperous plantation home in the Mississippi Delta where the ailing, domineering tycoon Big Daddy Pollitt (Ives in the original) squabbles with his sons (including the alcoholic, failed football player Brick, played by Gazzara) and their wives (including the scheming Maggie the Cat, originated by Bel Geddes) over the future of the estate.

The play has been revived on Broadway five times since the 1955 original, including in 1974 (with Elizabeth Ashley, Keir Dullea, Fred Gwynne); 1990 (Kathleen Turner, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Charles Durning); 2003 (Ashley Judd, Jason Patric, Ned Beatty); 2008 (Anika Noni Rose, Terrence Howard, James Earl Jones) and, most recently, 2013 (Scarlett Johansson, Benjamin Walker, Ciarán Hinds). A 2024 London revival, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, starred Daisy Edgar-Jones, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lennie James.

The play was famously adapted for the big screen – with a significantly altered ending and suggestions of homosexuality largely excised – released by MGM in 1958. Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman starred, with Ives and Madeleine Sherwood, as Brick’s busybody sister-in-law, reprising their stage roles.

The rights deal for the upcoming Gold-directed revival was brokered on behalf of International Literary Properties by its VP of Business & Legal Affairs Jessica Mariani and Mel Kenyon of Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, and for Seaview by David Manella of Loeb & Loeb. Kent Nicholson, SVP of ILP Theatrical will oversee with Barra.

Development of the production was supported by Adam Zell of Dark Matter and the production will be managed on Broadway by 101 Productions, Ltd.