Adrienne Warren to Lead “Room” Broadway Adaptation, Cora Bissett Directing

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Adrienne Warren to Lead “Room” Broadway Adaptation, Cora Bissett Directing

Adrienne Warren will follow up Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” with another woman-directed project. Deadline reports that the Tony winner will return to the stage with the Broadway American premiere of “Room,” Emma Donoghue’s stage adaptation of her 2010 novel. Donoghue also adapted the book into a 2015 film led by Brie Larson, who went on to win an Oscar for her performance.

“Room” centers on Ma (Warren), a woman who was kidnapped as a teenage girl. She’s spent seven years locked up by her captor. Now a mother to a five-year-old son who has never experienced the outside world, Ma builds an imaginary world for him — and plots their escape.

Featuring songs and music by Scottish songwriters Kathryn Joseph and Cora Bissett and directed by the latter, the show will open April 17 at the James Earl Jones Theatre, with previews beginning on April 3 with the limited engagement running through September 17.

“‘Room’ comes to Broadway following its critically acclaimed 2017 world premiere at Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, UK, and productions at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland; the National Theatre of Scotland; the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario; and the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Ontario,” the source details.

“I am truly honored for the opportunity to return to Broadway in a project unlike anything I’ve done before,” said Warren. “There were many reasons I wanted to join this team in telling this story, but most importantly, I wanted to share this beautifully human bond between a mother and her son. This is for all the little Jacks out there determined to hold on to their sense of joy and wonder and all the Mas out there doing their absolute best to live, love, and protect through it all.”

Warren won a Tony for “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.” She recently starred in ABC miniseries “Women of the Movement.”

Donoghue received an Oscar nomination for penning the screenplay for “Room.” Her book has sold nearly three million copies.