Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep To Team In 'August: Osage County' →
So, true story, I was an (the?) assistant producer on this show for nine months (which included the day we won a Tony for Best Play for it). And great for Tracy Letts, but the fact that people aren’t going to get to understand this play without having the element of this kind of star power in it - regardless of their performances - is too bad, and definitely kills a huge amount of the, I don’t know, magic behind the original production. Even the Angels In America adaptation was (even with Mary Louise Parker, Al Pacino, and Meryl Streep) a paired-down lower-profile cast, and no question, they jumped into this thing head-first the second they could close on the deal. In order for it to work, in fact, it’s going to have to be so utterly, completely different from the stage play. They’re going to have to give it the “fifth dimension” of adapting something from the stage, otherwise, it’s gonna end up being Closer. Either way, this bums me out.
