Jessica Chastain Brings Lost Lear to Broadway's Booth Theatre

Tickets went on sale this week for Lost Lear, Dan Colley's new play starring Academy Award winner and Tony nominee Jessica Chastain. The production begins performances March 29, 2027 at Broadway's Booth Theatre, with opening night set for April 23. It runs 16 weeks. Colley directs his own script.

That's the hard news. The softer news is the cast, which is not soft at all. Chastain plays Joy, a former actress with dementia. Golden Globe and Tony nominee Corey Stoll plays Conor, her estranged son. Two-time Emmy nominee Michael Urie plays Liam, a staff member at Joy's nursing home. Additional casting comes later.

What is the play actually about?

The premise is tidy and a bit cruel in the way good premises are. As Joy's grip on the present slips, she becomes certain she's back in rehearsal for King Lear. Her nurse takes his cues from her, stepping into whatever role she needs him to play at the moment. Then Conor arrives, ready to say what he has spent years leaving unsaid. If he wants his mother to hear him, he'll have to step into the scene himself.

The mechanism is straightforward: the Shakespeare text becomes a shared language between a mind that's leaving and a family that waited too long. Chastain, a Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner, last worked on Broadway with director Jamie Lloyd in A Doll's House, where she played a woman dismantling a household. Here she plays a woman losing the household of her mind entirely.

Who's building it?

The creative team carries serious Tony arithmetic:

• Scott Pask, three-time Tony Award winner, handles production design
• An unnamed five-time Tony Award nominee handles lighting design

The source cuts off mid-sentence on the remaining designers, so further credits will surface as the production announces them.

Does the timing work?

A 16-week limited engagement starting in late March is a classic spring slot: it lands after the awards-eligibility crunch and runs through the summer tourist season. Chastain's name should carry the box office; Stoll and Urie give the production genuine stage credibility rather than mere star furniture.

What happens next?

Watch for the additional casting announcement and the full design team reveal. Until then, the math is simple: one Oscar winner, one estranged son, one nurse, and a King Lear that exists mostly in one woman's rehearsal-hall memory. It opens April 23, 2027, and Broadway will find out whether grief and Shakespeare fit inside a 16-week window.