Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, Starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and Alison Pill, Arrives on Broadway

Three Tall Women, late playwright Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical drama inspired by his own adoptive mother, begins Broadway previews March 1 at the Golden Theatre. Technical issues delayed the start of performances, which were scheduled to begin February 28.

The Broadway premiere stars two-time Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson (King Lear, Women in Love, A Touch of Class), Tony Award winner and Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird; A Doll’s House, Part 2), and Tony Award nominee Alison Pill (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Blackbird).

Three Tall Women follows the interactions between three women, named only A, B, and C, who represent different versions of the same woman in her 90s, 50s, and 20s.

Two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Assassins) directs the production that will officially open March 29. Three Tall Women is produced on Broadway for the first time by Scott Rudin.

Hailed as his most personal work, Albee directed the world premiere of Three Tall Women at Vienna’s English Theatre in 1991. The play received its New York premiere at the Vineyard Theatre in January 1994 under the direction of Lawrence Sacharow, with a cast featuring Myra Carter, Marian Seldes—a veteran of Albee's plays—and Jordan Baker.

Albee was awarded his third Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Three Tall Women, following A Delicate Balance in 1966 and Seascape in 1975. The play marked a resurgence in Albee’s career. Following a sold-out engagement at the Vineyard, Three Tall Women swiftly transferred to the Promenade Theatre in April 1994 for an open-ended commercial run Off-Broadway, where it ran for 582 performances.

The creative team for the Broadway production includes Miriam Buether (scenic design), Ann Roth (costume design), Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting design), Fitz Patton (sound design), and Luc Verschueren and Campbell Young Associates (hair and makeup design).