Tavi Gevinson Will Make Her Broadway Debut in This Is Our Youth
Tavi's career change will make you feel like a hopeless underachiever all over again.
Having already been more successful in one career than most of us will, let's face it, ever be at any, Tavi Gevinson is about to extend her foray into a second: acting. The 17-year-old Rookie editor-in-chief is set to make her Broadway stage debut later this year in Kenneth Lonergan's comedy-drama This Is Our Youth alongside Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin.
Cera and Culkin have played the same roles in a previous production, which played at the Sydney Opera House in 2012, when audiences flocked to see whether Cera could break the George Michael mould (a goal he finally achieved slapping Rihanna's bottom in This Is the End). The play falls firmly into the 'bored, disaffected New York youth' genre, elevated by its Reagan-era setting and a caper with cocaine and toy collection. After writing it in 1996, Lonergan went on to script Gangs of New York.
Gevinson will play the character of Jessica Goldman — appropriately enough, a 17-year-old student of fashion. She's a character full of nervousness but also curiosity and hunger for experience. "I guess Jessica is often played by people who are older and have more distance from that time," Gevinson told the Chicago Tribune. "But I am living it. I really am cocksure of all my opinions, and I really do feel anxious when challenged. My issue, I think, will be having to zoom out of what I actually am experiencing."
Everything Happens So Much http://t.co/ccZDEmufQf
— Tavi Gevinson (@tavitulle) April 9, 2014
This production of the play will be directed by Anna D. Shapiro, the Tony Award winner who directed the super-famous August: Osage County for Steppenwolf Theatre Company. It will make its premiere at Steppenwolf's Chicago theatre before moving to Broadway in September.
Gevinson, who also had a role in the 2013 film Enough Said, will miss her last couple of weeks of high school in order to appear in the play. A genius move if ever there was one.
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