A Broadway revival of Garson Kanin’s play “Born Yesterday” is in the works for spring 2011, possibly with a relatively unknown actress in the lead role that Judy Holliday made famous more than 60 years ago, two theater executives familiar with the plans said on Tuesday.
Nina Arianda, who received rave reviews last spring and several acting awards for her first major Off Broadway performance, as Vanda in the dark comedy “Venus in Fur,” is in discussions to play Billie Dawn, the showgirl mistress of the corrupt businessman Harry Brock, according to the two executives who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revival was still in unofficial planning stages.
The actor Jim Belushi, best known from the ABC comedy “According to Jim,” is in discussions to play Brock; the two executives were not aware of who might play Paul Verrall, the good-guy journalist whose tutoring of Billie Dawn helps open her eyes to her boyfriend’s shady ways. The timing of the production depends in part on Mr. Belushi’s availability once his current television series, “The Defenders” on CBS, concludes taping this winter.
The original Broadway production of “Born Yesterday” opened in February 1946 with Ms. Holliday, Paul Douglas as Brock, and Gary Merrill as Verrall, and ran for nearly four years; Ms. Holliday went on to win an Academy Award for best actress as Billie Dawn in the 1950 film version, which included Broderick Crawford as Brock and William Holden as Verrall.
Doug Hughes is signed on to direct the revival; he most recently directed a revival of “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” on Broadway, and won the Tony for best director of a play in 2005 for “Doubt.”
The producers are Philip Morgaman, Anne and Vincent Caruso, Frankie J. Grande and James P. MacGilvray. The show’s publicist, Richard Kornberg, declined to comment on Tuesday.
The play has been revived once on Broadway, in 1989, starring Madeline Kahn in a production that ran just five months.
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