Tony Award-winning LCT resident director Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, The Light in the Piazza, Women on the Verge...), who also helmed the 2006 revival of Odets' Awake and Sing! for LCT, directs Golden Boy, which began Broadway previews Nov. 9. The original production premiered at the Belasco in 1937.
"Boxing is a lot of preparation and then improvising so there are parallels to being an actor," 25-year-old Numrich told Playbill in a recent interview. The youngest student to ever be accepted into the Julliard School's drama division, Numrich also appeared on Broadway in The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino and Yosemite Off-Broadway earlier this year.
"He was one of the only actors I believed could actually be a concert violinist and a boxer," director Sher added. "[His] elegant physical skills and his great technical chops with language is a combination of skills that's hard to find."
Read the full feature from Playbill magazine here.
The cast also features Tony Award winner Anthony Crivello (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Tony Shalhoub (Lend Me A Tenor), Danny Burstein (Follies, South Pacific), Jonathan Hadary (Awake and Sing!, Gypsy), Daniel Jenkins (Big River), Michael Aronov (Blood and Gifts), Sean Cullen (South Pacific), Dagmara Dominczyk (The Violet Hour), Ned Eisenberg (Awake and Sing!), Brad Fleischer (Coram Boy), Karl Glusman (Seagull), Danny Mastrogiorgio (Stunning), Dion Mucciacito (Apple Cove), Lucas Caleb Rooney (Henry IV), Vayu O'Donnell (Man and Boy), Yvonne Strahovski (Finn City), David Wohl (Dinner at Eight) and Demosthenes Chrysan. According to LCT, "Golden Boy is the story of Joe Bonaparte, a young, gifted violinist who is torn between pursuing a career in music and earning big money as a prize fighter."
The production has sets by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Catherine Zuber, lighting by Donald Holder and sound by Peter John Still and Marc Salzberg.
Odets' plays also include Till The Day I Die, Paradise Lost, Rocket To The Moon, Night Music, Clash By Night, The Big Knife and The Country Girl. He also penned the screenplay for "Sweet Smell of Success." The Roundabout Theatre Company is also planning to revive Odets' The Big Knife, starring Bobby Cannavale, which will begin Broadway previews in March 2013.
For tickets visit Telecharge.com or LCT.org. A limited number of tickets priced at $32 are available at every performance through LincTix, LCT's program for 21 to 35 year olds. For information and to enroll, visit LincTix.org.
