Jonathan Kent to Direct David Hare’s Montauk on Broadway as Daniel Sullivan Retires

About the Play

Linney plays Roxy Margaux, a popular essayist with a gift for explaining complicated modern art. The play centers on her relationship with Jared Speight, an abstract painter living alone toward the wilder end of Long Island, and it explores what each person gives up for their art. Linney is a five-time Tony nominee and four-time Emmy winner, BroadwayWorld noted.

A British Partnership

With Kent on board, the English playwright’s new work will be led by a British director in its Broadway premiere. The two have a long history: Hare said that “almost 30 years ago, Jonathan and I started collaborating on plays by Pirandello, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Brecht,” including the Young Chekhov trilogy of Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull, first at Chichester and then at the National Theatre.

Hare added that “no one could step into his huge shoes better than Jonathan Kent,” and that he “can’t wait to crack on with Jonathan on Montauk.”

Kent, an Olivier and Tony nominee, has directed Medea, Faith Healer, The Height of the Storm and Long Day’s Journey into Night on Broadway. “Working with David is always a profound joy,” he said, calling his collaboration with Linney “an exquisite gift.”

A Career With MTC

Sullivan’s retirement ends a 55-year career. He has directed 20 productions for Manhattan Theatre Club, including the original staging of David Auburn’s Proof, which won him the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 2001. His MTC work also includes Sight Unseen, Time Stands Still, Rabbit Hole, Good People, The Little Foxes and Summer, 1976, and he served as the company’s interim artistic director during Lynne Meadow’s 2007 to 2008 sabbatical.

His other Broadway credits include I’m Not Rappaport, The Heidi Chronicles, Conversations with My Father, The Sisters Rosensweig, A Moon for the Misbegotten and Glengarry Glen Ross. He also directed Hare’s Stuff Happens for the Public Theater, a production Hare remembered as having “electrified the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.”

“It has been a privilege to bring stories to life alongside the most brilliant artists in the theatre, but I feel it’s time for me to step into a well-earned retirement,” Sullivan said in a statement. He called Kent “a visionary of immense talent.”

Meadow, who led MTC for five decades, said, “There is no director with whom I have worked more closely than the great Dan Sullivan.” She added that he “will continue to be a special advisor” to the company, Deadline reported.