New School for Drama playwriting faculty member Christopher Shinn’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler began preview performances on Broadway on Tuesday, January 6. This new production by the Roundabout Theater Company stars Mary-Louise Parker in the title role, and is being directed by Ian Rickson, who also directed the recent Broadway production of The Seagull.

“Ibsen is my favorite playwright and the writer I always dreamed about adapting, so I felt like I could do it,” Shinn speaks of the new work. “There are certain things that audiences have heard time and time again,” he said, noting that where the language had gotten dusty he tried to “open the window and let some fresh air in.” And because audiences today have higher shock thresholds than audiences in Ibsen’s time, he felt it was appropriate to “excavate” some social and psychological insights that were present in Ibsen’s text but buried. “The way you honor a radical writer is not to write a conservative adaptation of his work,” he said, summing up his approach.

Shinn’s plays include Where Do We Live and Dying City, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. Hedda Gabler is currently in previews at the American Airlines Theatre, with the official opening of January 25, 2009.

Visit www.roundabouttheatre.org for more information.