Jessica Chastain Returns to Broadway in Lost Lear This Spring

Academy Award winner and Tony nominee Jessica Chastain will return to Broadway on March 29, 2027, starring in Lost Lear, the acclaimed play written and directed by Irish theatermaker Dan Colley. The production begins performances at the Booth Theatre, with an official opening night set for April 23 and a 16-week limited engagement.

Who joins Chastain on stage?

Chastain will play Joy, a woman with dementia living inside an old memory of rehearsing Shakespeare's King Lear. Two familiar faces join her:

• Corey Stoll, Golden Globe and Tony nominee, as Conor, Joy's estranged son
• Michael Urie, two-time Emmy nominee, as Liam, a staff member at Joy's nursing home

Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

What has the playwright said?

Colley reflected on the production's unlikely journey to New York in a statement. "I never imagined, when we first made Lost Lear, that it would one day be on Broadway—and I've imagined some pretty wild things," he said. "I'm so thrilled to have the opportunity to share this piece with New York audiences and to discover new facets of the work through collaborating with this remarkable company of artists."

The remark signals that this Broadway transfer is not a straightforward reissue. Colley frames it as a fresh collaboration, one that promises to reveal new dimensions of a work already praised in its earlier incarnations.

Where does this leave Chastain's stage career?

This return marks Chastain's first Broadway appearance since she played Nora Helmer in Jamie Lloyd's 2023 revival of A Doll's House, a performance that earned her a Tony nomination. That production cemented her reputation as a stage actress capable of carrying a stripped-down, high-profile revival.

Lost Lear raises the stakes differently. The role of Joy asks an actress to portray a mind losing hold of the present while dwelling inside a remembered rehearsal of one of Shakespeare's most demanding tragedies. The premise folds meta-theater into an intimate study of memory, illness and family fracture.

What does this change for Broadway audiences?

The engagement brings a formally adventurous Irish play to a commercial Broadway house, anchored by a film star with proven box-office pull and a Tony-nominated stage record. For audiences, it means a 16-week window to see Chastain, Stoll and Urie in a work that made its name outside the commercial theater ecosystem.

The April 23 opening places the production squarely in the spring awards-season conversation, and the limited run guarantees that tickets will carry a hard deadline.