Mark Ruffalo in STREETCAR?

[SonofCorine2]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:39pm

Has the rumor that Mark Ruffalo will be playing Stanley opposite Natascha Richardson's Blanche in STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE been confirmed?

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:40pm

Be still my beating heart! Are you serious? Oh my GOD!

[SonofCorine2]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:43pm

I've seen it posted several places but have not seen an official annoucement from Roundabout.

I know that they had auditions for the show last week and the notice said that the roles of Blanche and Stanley had been cast.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:46pm

If it IS him, I will be there. A lot. You may have gathered this already, but I LOVE him.

[cabarethed]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:49pm

That would be far too hot. Damn Roundabout for always sucking me back in.

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:50pm

I'm just getting acquainted with Mr. Ruffalo, but that casting would seem to make a LOT of sense from what I've seen.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:53pm

Don't get me wrong, he gets me very moist down there but I can't help but be a tad upset by this and it makes me wonder something.

There are countless numbers of boys and girls who want to be on stage. If their dream is to be on Broadway, is the only way for them to do that now to make a name for themselves in Hollywood?

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:54pm

Oh don't start with that argument again, please, I beg you.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 2:57pm

I'm just sayin'...

Posted: 9/25/04 at 3:02pm

"A native of Wisconsin, Mark Ruffalo moved with his family to Virginia Beach, where he lived out most of his teenage years. Afterward they moved to San Diego when he was 18 and soon migrated north, settling in Los Angeles where he took classes at the Stella Adler conservatory. He eventually co-founded the Orpheus Theatre Company, an Equity-Waiver establishment, where he did yeoman work -- from acting, writing, directing and producing to running the lights and building sets. Despite good stage reviews, he couldn't get arrested in film and TV, bartending for nearly nine years to make ends meet. Ready to give it all up, a chance meeting and resulting corroboration with playwright/screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan changed everything. Ruffalo won NY success in Lonergan's play "This Is Our Youth", which led to his winning the male lead in Lonergan's film You Can Count on Me (2000). Hollywood took major, award-winning notice, some reviewers even comparing him to an early Marlon Brando. Despite his newfound stardom, he still remains true to his small theater company in L.A., occasionally directing and performing in between the big, lucrative film projects that are now coming his way."

It seems he has done stage work. And besides, I grew up in Virginia Beach as well, so I guess he can't be TOO bad

[Matt_G]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 3:04pm

Oh, I know all about him but I'm talking in general. It was just something that I thought about.

[MyNameInLights]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 3:05pm

Oh MY God. I'm so in love with him! This is such hot news!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 9/25/04 at 3:28pm

To answer your question Matt, yes, 99% of the time you have to have a "name" either through television or the movies to star in a play on Broadway. Jefferson Mays in IAMOW is one of the few exceptions (and that was due to the nature of the play and the dozens of roles it requires the lead actor to portray -- few other actors, famous or not, could pull off what Mays is doing).

Here's something I posted on this subject a while back in a thread (about Karen Ziemba and why she wasn't a bigger star):

"Look at Bebe Neuwirth. In the early 80's, she was a gifted, but unknown triple threat, playing Sheila in "A Chorus Line" and a featured role in "Dancin." The same year she had her Tony-winning breakthrough role of Nickie in the revival of "Sweet Charity" starring Debbie Allen (another unknown Tony-nominated, scene-stealing triple threat in several Broadway shows in the 70's, but after "Fame" was able to return to Broadway as a star) she landed the role of Lillith on "Cheers" (a role her agents had to talk her into accepting, because she wanted to stay in NY as a dancer/singer). Being a featured player on "Cheers" for several years and winning a couple of Emmys in the process allowed her to return to her main love, dancing and singing on Broadway, only she was able to comeback as a name-above-the-title star, rather than as a scene-stealing featured player. If she hadn't gone to Hollywood and become a household name as Lillith, it's doubtful she'd have been cast as in leading roles in "Damn Yankees" and "Chicago."

Phylicia Rashad, Bernadette Peters, Betty Buckley, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Edie Falco, Jane Krakowski and many others are examples of talented performers who paid their dues for years on the New York stage, but who after leaving for Hollywood and finding somewhat modest fame in television and/or the movies, were able to return to Broadway as name-above-the-title stars. That's what Broadway producers want and it's ironic that so many of those who stayed and slogged it away in the world of theatre without going to Hollywood, now find themselves mid-career unable to land the starring roles which their talent and exerience should have earned them.

Elizabeth Ashley talked about this ironic phenomenon in an interview not long ago. After winning a Tony in her debut "Take Her, She's Mine" and starring in the original production of "Barefoot in the Park" (and having a nervous breakdown during it, but that's another story), she went to Hollywood for several years trying to be a movie star. In the 70's, having grown tired of LA, she returned to NY with the intention of devoting the rest of her career to theatre. She gave a series of acclaimed stage performances (including what many consider to be the definitive Maggie in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof") and by the time the 90's rolled around she was quintessentially a "stage actress." Despite a film role here and there, she had been mostly forgotten by Hollywood. She didn't mind that until, she wanted to play a few of the great stage roles for actresses in their 50's and 60's and she found that she couldn't do them on Broadway -- although she'd spent the last several decades honing her craft on stage, producers told her she wasn't a big enough "name" anymore to headline a major Broadway revival of a Tennessee Williams, O'Neill or Albee work -- those roles would have to go to actresses who had abandoned NY for Hollywood years before and because their "names" now could sell tickets. They, not Ashley (or several other revered stage actresses), would have the opportunity to play some of the great roles of the American theatre on Broadway."