It has been announced that award-winning theatre, film, and television actor Michael Stuhlbarg (The Pillowman, Boardwalk Empire) will return to Broadway for the first time in almost 20 years to star in Patriots, the Almeida Theatre production of the shockingly timely new play by Peter Morgan, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre from 1 April.

Directed by Rupert Goold, original London cast member Will Keen will recreate his mesmerizing Olivier Award-winning performance as Vladimir Putin, alongside Luke Thallon (Evening Standard Award nominee for the Almeida’s Albion) as Russian oligarch and politician Roman Abramovich. Additional casting will be announced in coming weeks.

In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new Russia belongs to its oligarchs – and no one is more powerful than billionaire Boris Berezovsky (Stuhlbarg). “If the politicians cannot save Russia,” he insists, “then we businessmen must.” When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to the little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin (Keen). But soon Putin’s ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky’s reign, setting off a riveting, near-Shakespearean confrontation between the two powerful, fatally flawed men.

Producer Sonia Friedman said: “For 20 years, Peter Morgan has pioneered a new mode of storytelling to illuminate our world. No other writer wrings so much human drama out of historical events, but Patriots is his most urgent and essential play to date – an incisive deep-dive into 30 years of Russia’s past in search of its horrifying and harrowing present, something that should concern us all. Its London premiere at the Almeida and in the West End repeatedly seemed to reflect that day’s headlines and, with the world at a crossroads in 2024, it feels more immediate than ever. We are so fortunate that one of America’s greatest actors, Michael Stuhlbarg, will join us to play Boris Berezovsky, with Will Keen recreating his Olivier Award-winning role as Vladimir Putin, and that Broadway audiences will get to experience Rupert Goold’s exhilarating production for themselves.”

The creative team for Patriots includes three-time Tony Award nominated set designer Miriam Buether, co-costume designers Deborah Andrews and Miriam Buether, lighting designer Jack Knowles, Tony Award-winning sound designer and composer Adam Cork, movement director Polly Bennett, projection designer Ash J Woodward, and casting director Jim Carnahan, CSA.

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