‘Clybourne Park’ Readies Broadway Transfer With New Producer

Only three days after lead producer Scott Rudin announced he was leaving the upcoming Broadway production of “Clybourne Park,” it has now been confirmed that the play will go on as scheduled, now under a new producer.

Jordan Roth, president of Jujamycn Theatres, will serve as the lead producer, and he confirmed the future of the play today in a statement.

“It is a true privilege for all of us at Jujamcyn to bring such a fiercely provocative and wildly funny work to Broadway audiences,” he said. “’Clybourne Park’ is on. We’ll see you there!”

Jujamycn Theatres owns the Walter Kerr Theatre, where the play will open this spring. The production has a previously announced opening date of April 12.

Rudin announced he was leaving the production on January 31, citing a disagreement with the playwright of “Clybourne Park,” Bruce Norris. Rudin said Norris had been cast as an actor in “The Corrections,” an upcoming HBO series directed by Rudin, but that after contract negotiations, Rudin became unhappy with Norris’ actions.

“Mr. Norris called to tell me – after every issue had been resolved in his favor – that he had decided not to appear in the show,” Ruding said in a statement to the New York Times, “and had in fact during the negotiation made a series of what he termed more and more outrageous demands in the hope that we would turn him down, and that he would not have to face the responsibility of reneging on a commitment he made.”

“Clybourne Park” is a play concerning two racially-charged sales transactions of a single house, one taking place in 1959 and the other taking place in 2009. The play opened Off-Broadway in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizons and has since been performed in Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and London. The London production won an Olivier Award for Best New Play.