Natasha Richardson takes to Broadway stage

British actress Natasha Richardson will portray Tennessee Williams’s fragile, faded Southern beauty Blanche du Bois in a Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, opening next spring.

The rest of the cast and the revival’s production team, including the director, will be announced shortly. Performances begin in March 2005 at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Studio 54. No opening date has been set.

Richardson was nominated for a Tony Award in 1993 for her work in the Roundabout’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie. She won a Tony in 1998 for the company’s revival of the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret.

A Streetcar Named Desire, which first opened on Broadway in 1947, originally starred Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando. Among the actresses who have played Blanche on Broadway have been Uta Hagen, Rosemary Harris, Lois Nettleton, Blythe Danner and Jessica Lange.