Al Pacino is scheduled to star in a workshop production of Lyle Kessler's drama Orphans at the 99-Seat Greenway Court Theatre in West Hollywood in September. Pacino will play Harold, a corrupt businessman who is kidnapped by a pair of small-time criminal brothers.
Producers plan to send the production to Broadway, which will mark Orphans' first time there. However, Pacino is known for workshopping stage projects for months before making them available to a wider, commercial audience. He most famously developed a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn for more than a year before it bowed as Salome: The Reading at the Barrymore Theatre in 2003. A two-time Tony Award winner, Pacino also appeared on Broadway in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Richard III, American Buffalo, and Chinese Coffee.
Co-producer Frederick Zollo, whose credits include Quiz Show, The Ghosts of Mississippi, and the recent Broadway revival of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, told Playbill.com that his team plans to take the project one step at a time. That team includes Emanuel Azenberg, producer of all of Neil Simon's plays since 1972; Jeffrey Sine, producer of the 2002 La Boheme revival directed by Baz Luhrmann; and Ira Pittelman, producer of the 1999 revival of The Iceman Cometh, starring Kevin Spacey. All share co-producer credits.
Belgian director Ulu Grosbard (Falling in Love, True Confessions, Georgia) is set to direct. He has been twice nominated for the Best Director Tony: for The Subject Was Roses in 1966 and American Buffalo in 1977.
Playwright-actor Kessler's other works include The Watering Place (1963), Possessions (1978), and Robbers (1987). He was most recently seen playing Lee Strasberg in James Dean, the 2001 telepic that starred James Franco.
Alan J. Paluka directed a feature-film adaptation of Orphans in 1987, which starred Albert Finney, Matthew Modine, and Kevin Anderson.
Casting has been completed by Bernard Telsey Casting in New York.