Bryan Cranston to Play Howard Beale on Stage in ‘Network’

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/arts/national-theater-network-bryan-cranston-ivo-van-hove.html

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LONDON — The Emmy and Tony Award winner Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) will star as Howard Beale in a new stage adaptation of the bitingly satirical film “Network” scheduled to open at the National Theater in London this year, the theater announced on Friday.

Ivo van Hove, the acclaimed international theater director, will stage the play, about executives at a struggling TV network and their Machiavellian maneuvers for higher ratings — including the manipulation of Mr. Cranston’s character, the “mad as hell” television host that Peter Finch played in the film.

Lee Hall, the screenwriter of “Billy Elliot,” is adapting the Oscar-winning screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. Mr. van Hove, who won a Tony last year for directing a revival of “A View from the Bridge” on Broadway, is set to open the show in November on the National’s Lyttelton stage.

The theater also announced that its hit production of “People, Places and Things” would travel to St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York in October. The actress Denise Gough earned starry-eyed reviews when she played the lead role, Emma, at the National in 2015, and later in London’s West End. She will travel to New York with the show.

The theater announced the plays as part of a broader lineup for 2017 and 2018. Other productions include the world premiere of “Saint George and the Dragon” by Rory Mullarkey, which will be directed by Lyndsey Turner, who staged a sold-out production of “Hamlet” in 2015 starring Benedict Cumberbatch; and a production of “Macbeth” starring Rory Kinnear. “Saint George” will open in October, and “Macbeth” in the spring of 2018.