Ava: The Secret Conversations completes Geffen Playhouse's upcoming 2022-23 season and is set to begin at the Los Angeles company's Gil Cates Theater April 4, 2023, ahead of an April 13 opening night. Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, the production will continue through May 7.

The new work, about Hollywood legend Ava Gardner, is written by and will star Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey). The California run will mark the work's U.S. premiere following a London bow earlier this year. The play depicts Gardner working with ghost writer Peter Evans on what was to be her tell-all biography, a real-life troubled project that was ultimately abandoned until portions of Evans' work and notes were published following his death in 2012. Additional casting is to be announced.

The project is produced in association with Karl Sydow, and with the support of the Ava Gardner Trust.

Also planned for the upcoming season, as previously announced, are the West Coast premieres of Matthew López's Tony-winning The Inheritance and Lee Edward Colston II's The First Deep Breath, and Katori Hall's The Mountaintop.

Visit GeffenPlayhouse.org.