Harry Groener

Brooke Shields & Richard Chamberlain to Star in Premiere of THE EXORCIST at Geffen Playhouse; Full Cast Announced!

Stage and screen stars Brooke Shields and Richard Chamberlain will take on the iconic roles of Chris MacNeil and Father Merrin in playwright John Pielmeier’s world premiere of The Exorcist at the Geffen Playhouse. Helmed by acclaimed director John Doyle, who won a Tony Award for his striking reimagining of Sweeney Todd, this stage adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s famous 1971 novel transforms the unsettling battles of good versus evil, faith versus fact and ego versus ethos into a uniquely theatrical experience as sophisticated as it is suspenseful.

Joining Shields and Chamberlain on stage is Broadway actor David Wilson Barnes (The Lieutenant of Inishmore) as the troubled young priest Father Damien Karras, Tony Award nominee and Geffen alum Harry Groener (Equivocation) as Chris’ charismatic director Burke Dennings and UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate Emily Yetter as young Regan MacNeil. The world premiere cast also includes Stephen Bogardus, Manoel Felciano, Tom Nelis and Roslyn Ruff.

“The story of the battle between faith and evil needed no spinning heads or green vomit,” said playwright John Pielmeier, who is most well-known for the award-winning play/screenplay Agnes of God and the acclaimed miniseries The Pillars of the Earth. “The horror should unfold instead on a simple set with an incredible cast (which we absolutely have), and the central conflict between doubting Father Karras and the demon should be a series of debates, in which the young girl possessed is the least of the figures present.”

The Exorcist begins in previews in the Gil Cates Theater at the Geffen Playhouse on July 3, 2012 and officially opens on Wednesday, July 11, 2012. Special events during the run of The Exorcist include the theater’s Signature Series performances for no additional cost. These evenings include an intellectual, thought-provoking post show Q&A at Talk Back Tuesdays; a scintillating, one-of-a kind after-party at Girls Night Out; a cultural happy hour with Lounge Fridays and complimentary wine tastings during Wine Down Sundays. For more information, please view www.geffenplayhouse.com/exorcistevents.

David Wilson Barnes (Father Damien Karras)

Broadway: The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Off-Broadway: The Big Meal (Playwright’s Horizons), All New People (Second Stage), Becky Shaw (Second Stage/ATL, Drama League Honor), Lady, St. Crispin’s Day (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Vengeance (stageFARM), The Attic (The Play Company), Men Without Shadows (The Flea), The Square (Ma Yi Theatre Company/The Public Theatre), Hamlet (The Public Theatre), Jail Bait (The Cherry Lane). International: Becky Shaw (London, The Almeida, Evening Standard Nomination). Regional: The A.R.T., Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Geva Theatre, The City Theatre, The Long Wharf, Virginia Stage Company, The Cape Playhouse. Television: A Gifted Man, 30 Rock, The Eastmans (pilot, series regular), Sex and the City, Law & Order/C I/SVU, Conviction, All My Children, As The World Turns. Film: The Bourne Legacy, You Don’t Know Jack, Love and Other Drugs, Company Men, Taking Woodstock, The Scene, Capote, How to Seduce Difficult Women, Ozark Savage.