Abigail Breslin
By Helaine Feldman, Contributing Writer, February 20, 2017
Remember the young actress who lit up the screen as the precocious beauty pageant contestant in the 2006 film, Little Miss Sunshine? That was ten-year old Abigail Breslin in her breakthrough role, although she actually had been acting since the age of three when she appeared in a Toys R Us commercial.
Breslin’s all grown up now and in New York starring in All the Fine Boys, presented by The New Group for a limited run; previews began February 14 with an official opening on March 1, and will play through March 26 at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street. The play, about the complications of sexual awakening and coming of age in suburban South Carolina in the late ‘80s, is written and directed by Erica Schmidt.
Little Miss Sunshine, about a dysfunctional family on a road trip, was a critical and commercial success, bringing Breslin a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the fourth youngest actress to be nominated in that category. (Alan Arkin, who played her foul-mouthed grandfather in the film received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance and at age 72, was the sixth oldest actor to receive that award.)
After several more films, Breslin made her Broadway debut in 2010 as the rebellious Helen Keller in a revival of William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker at the Circle in the Square. Breslin returned to films and TV following the play’s brief run and in 2015 joined the cast of Fox-TV’s horror-comedy anthology series, Scream Queens, her first regular role on a TV series.
The New Group, founded in 1995, is having a successful 2016-17 season. A revival of Sweet Charity, starring Sutton Foster, received rave reviews. This is followed by the U.S. premiere of Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House, which began previews on January 31 and opened February 16 with a cast including Matthew Broderick, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker; it runs through March 12 at the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, also at the Pershing Square Signature Center.
The fourth and final play of the season, set for May 2 through June 11, is Whirligig, written by Hamish Linklater and starring Norbert Leo Butz, Zosia Mamet and Maura Tierney.
Clearly, this is an exciting season for one of Off-Broadway’s most enduring companies.
For more information click here. Tickets are available by calling Ticket Central at 212.279.4200 or visiting the Ticket Central box office at 416 West 42nd Street.
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Helaine Feldman, a Contributing Writer for ZEALnyc, writes about theater performance and related features.
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