Jessica Chastain will play a former actress living with dementia in Dan Colley’s Lost Lear on Broadway. Corey Stoll and Michael Urie join her in the production at New York’s Booth Theatre. Performances begin on March 29, 2027, with an April 23 opening and a limited engagement of 16 weeks. The play follows a mother and son through memories of rehearsing King Lear.
Arts··Midday
Chastain joins Colley’s Broadway production
Jessica Chastain will return to Broadway, the New York theatre district in the United States, in Lost Lear. The play is written and directed by Dan Colley. Corey Stoll and Michael Urie will join Chastain in its cast.[1], [2]
The production will run at the Booth Theatre. Its first performance is scheduled for March 29, 2027, followed by an official opening on April 23. The engagement is limited to 16 weeks. Chastain will play Joy, Stoll will appear as her estranged son Conor, and Urie will play Liam, a care-home employee. Further casting will be announced later.[1]
A son enters his mother’s rehearsal world
Joy is a former actress who is living with dementia. She experiences the present through a remembered rehearsal of Shakespeare’s King Lear. A worker at her care home responds to her cues, taking on the characters she needs within that remembered world. When Conor visits, the meeting brings words that mother and son have left unspoken for years into the setting of the rehearsal.[1]
Lost Lear first appeared at the Dublin Theatre Festival in Ireland in 2022. It subsequently toured New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom. The British premiere took place at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre during the 2025 Festival Fringe, where the production received a Scotsman Fringe First Award.[1]
The cast brings earlier Broadway experience
Chastain last appeared on Broadway as Nora Helmer in Jamie Lloyd’s 2023 production of A Doll’s House, earning a Tony nomination. Her Broadway debut came in The Heiress in 2012. Stoll was nominated for a Tony for Appropriate in 2024, while Urie’s recent Broadway credits include Oh, Mary![1]
Scott Pask handles design on the new production, with lighting by Heather Gilbert and sound by Cody Spencer. Hana S. Kim and Yana Biryukova provide projection design. Daniel McAuley is composing the original music.[1]
