Brandon Flynn to Star as Marlon Brando in New Off-Broadway Play (Unique)

Brandon Flynn and Robin Lord Taylor are bringing two pop-culture giants again to the theater.

PEOPLE can solely reveal the 2 actors — Flynn, 31, of 13 Causes Why fame and Talyor, 46, recognized for his function in Gotham — will star as actor Marlon Brando and playwright Tennessee Williams in Kowalski, respectively, a brand new play by Gregg Ostrin impressed by the true story of their notorious first assembly.

Preview performances start Jan. 12, 2025, forward of a gap night time on Jan. 25 at The Duke on forty second Avenue at New 42 Studios in New York Metropolis. The play, directed by Colin Hanlon, will run by way of Feb. 16, 2025.

Different stars embrace Alison Cimmet (as director Margo Jones), Ellie Ricker (as Jo) and Sebastian Treviño (as Pancho Rodriguez).

As legend goes it, Brando and Williams first crossed paths in 1947, when Brando — then a 23-year-old actor with various Broadway credit, however nonetheless considerably unknown — got here up from New York Metropolis to Provincetown, Mass. to audition for the function of Stanley Kowalski in Williams’ new play, A Streetcar Named Need.

Brando had initially tried to again out of the audition, frightened, as he wrote in his 1994 e book, that it was “a dimension too giant.” However when he referred to as director Elia Kazan to show it down, the road was busy. And by the point they talked, he felt satisfied he may give it a shot.

Now it was simply time to get Williams on board. As Kazan recalled in his 1997 memoir, he gave Brando $20 to get himself as much as Provincetown. “After three days I referred to as Tennessee and requested him what he’d considered the actor I’d despatched him. ‘What actor?’ he requested,” Kazan stated. “Nobody had confirmed up, so I figured I’d misplaced 20 bucks and started to look elsewhere.”

However Brando did present up — only a few days later. Seems, regardless of the $20, he was flat broke and determined to hitchhike to the Cape Cod vacation spot together with his girlfriend as an alternative. “He was nearly the perfect trying man I’ve ever seen,” stated Williams in his 1975 autobiography, Memoirs.

It will get crazier from there. The Glass Menagerie playwright recounted that his home was in “home cataclysm” when Brando confirmed up. A light-weight fuse had blown, and there have been troubles with the pipes, the toilet blocked and water flooding the kitchen flooring. So Brando set to work — simply not on his audition.

“First he caught his hand into the overflowing bathroom bowl and unclogged the drain, then he tackled the fuses. Inside an hour, all the things labored,” Williams stated. “You’d suppose he had spent his total antecedent life repairing drains. Then he learn the script aloud, simply as he performed it. It was essentially the most magnificent studying I ever heard, and he had the half instantly.”

A Streetcar Named Need would catapult Brando into stardom. Although he’d by no means return to Broadway once more, he’d go on to have a six-decade profession on display together with within the 1951 movie adaptation of the play. He is broadly thought to be one of many biggest actors of the twentieth century, and counts two Oscars amongst his variety of accolades.

Williams, in the meantime, would proceed to thrive as a playwright, penning hits like The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Scorching Tin Roof, All of a sudden Final Summer time and Candy Chicken of Youth (amongst many, many others) and profitable two Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards. He’d additionally write screenplays, teleplays, quick tales, novels and poetry.

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It is unclear how a lot of that may make its approach into Kowalski. Per an official launch, the play “transports audiences to a pivotal second in theatrical historical past, exploring the tangled relationships and artistic tensions surrounding Williams as he crafts his masterpiece.”

The play “unfolds over one sultry night time,” and “affords a behind-the-scenes take a look at the uncooked forces that birthed one of many twentieth century’s biggest works, weaving reminiscence and fantasy right into a haunting exploration of ambition, artistry, and need.”

Tickets for Kowalski are actually on sale.