Cynthia Nixon to star in Broadway's 'Wit'

NEW YORK, July 20 (UPI) -- Award-winning actress and breast-cancer survivor Cynthia Nixon is to star in the Broadway production of "Wit," a drama about a woman battling cancer.

Manhattan Theatre Club said Wednesday previews of the play are to begin Jan. 5, with an opening planned for Jan. 26 at Manhattan's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

This will mark the Broadway premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson. "Wit" had its New York premiere in 1998 and ran Off-Broadway for more than 500 performances.

The new production will be directed by MTC Artistic Director Lynne Meadow.

Nixon, best known for her work in the "Sex and the City" TV series and films, earned a Tony Award for her portrayal of a grieving mother in MTC's production of David Lindsay-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole." She can currently be seen in Showtime's series "The Big C" opposite Laura Linney.

"Exquisitely written, affecting and often humorous, 'Wit' follows a brilliant and exacting poetry professor as she undergoes experimental treatment for cancer. A scholar who devoted her life to academia, she must now face the irony and injustice of becoming the subject of research," a synopsis said.