I remember the first time I saw Joan Allen. It was onstage in The Heidi Chronicles, Wendy Wasserstein’s play about a feminist art history professor which was really the first play to explore how feminism changed women. I so loved her (and the play) and I instantanly became a big fan. (Just thinking about the Heidi Chronicles makes me miss Wendy Wasserstein.)
I’ve watched her in films over the years in tons of supporting roles (The Ice Storm, Nixon) and was very psyched when she finally got a lead playing a vice-presidential nominee in Rod Lurie’s The Contender.
It took Ms. Allen 15 years to be cast as the lead in a movie. That happened in 2000 with “The Contender,” in which she played a senator nominated for the vice presidency who grapples with a sex scandal. For that performance Ms. Allen lost the Oscar for best actress to Julia Roberts.
She returns to Broadway after a long hiatus co-starring with Jeremy Irons in Impressionism opening tonight ironically on the same stage (though the theatre now has a different name) where she played Heidi Holland. She and Irons also co-star in the upcoming Lifetime film about Georgia O’Keefe.
Here’s a description of the play (from Playbill):
The play is billed as being about an international photojournalist and a New York gallery owner “who discover each other and also that there might be an art to repairing broken lives.”
Enter the Anti-Diva, Stage Right (NY Times)
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