Jesse Tyler Ferguson will portray the famed writer and swan-collector Truman Capote in the first New York revival of Jay Presson Allen’s 1989 Broadway hit Tru.
Beginning a six-week, 34-show production next month, Tru, directed by Rob Ashford, will be performed in an immersive style in a historic Gilded Ager Upper East Side mansion first owned by a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The building now is home to House of the Redeemer, a gorgeously appointed spiritual retreat and religious center often used for location filming (including Gossip Girl) due to its posh and stately rooms.
Ferguson, the Modern Family actor who won a Tony Award in 2022 for his role in Broadway’s Take Me Out, will perform Tru in the mansion’s library for an audience of 99 patrons per performance.
The engagement begins previews on Friday, March 6, opens Thursday, March 19, and runs through Sunday, April 12. Producing is Seaview, OHenry Productions, and Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon.
“I have long been fascinated by Truman Capote – both the man and his writing – and it is the honor of my career to be entrusted with playing him in the first New York revival of Tru,” Ferguson said in a statement. “From the moment Rob Ashford and I first discussed the idea, I envisioned an intimate, environmental experience. I can’t wait for audiences to encounter this play up close in the uniquely intimate, historic House of the Redeemer.”
Said Ashford, “I had the great pleasure of directing Jesse in a staged reading of Tru as a one night only charity benefit in Tangier, Morocco, the summer of 2024. He was mesmerizing! He captured the truth of the man, his humor and heartbreak. I’m thrilled that we get the opportunity to further explore this great pairing of actor and character.”
The synopsis: “It’s December 1975 and Truman Capote is alone in his New York apartment, reeling from a crisis that cost him the elite social circle he adored. Drawn entirely from Capote’s own words, this funny and heartbreaking one-man play is an unflinching portrait of an artist at his breaking point, confronting the consequences of his most scandalous work.”
The tale of Capote’s banishment from the high-society milieu he so cherished – he called the blue-blood ladies who lunch types such as Babe Paley, Lee Radziwill and C.Z. Guest his “swans” – was detailed in Ryan Murphy’s 2024 season of Feud titled Capote Vs. The Swans. Like Tru before it, the FX series chronicled the aftermath of the 1975 Esquire magazine publication of Capote’s barely veiled tell-all “La Côte Basque 1965,” a chapter of his never-to-be-published novel Answered Prayers.
“We’re thrilled for audiences to experience the heartbreaking power of Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Truman Capote as he channels the dark truths of this brilliant, yet complicated, artist,” the producers said. “Rob Ashford’s glorious environmental staging inside an intimate library preserved from the Gilded Age of New York promises to be a theater event for the history books.”
The House of the Redeemer was built between 1914 and 1916 as the city residence of Edith Shepard Fabbri, a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt and first cousin once-removed to Gloria Vanderbilt (who, though never officially a Capote “swan,” was a friend of the writer’s until the ’75 Esquire brouhaha).
Tru, in a production directed by the playwright, opened on Broadway on December 14, 1989, at the Booth Theatre. Robert Morse appeared in the title role and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
The creative team for the revival includes Mike Harrison (scenic decor and properties), Emily Schmit (lighting design), Christopher Darbassie (sound design), Kate Wilson (dialect coach), Stephen Sposito (associate director), and Eloia Peterson (production stage manager). Hudson Theatrical Associates serves as production supervisor with Jonathan Whitton & Christophe Desorbay of Seaview as General Manager.
Tru is produced by Seaview, OHenry Productions, and Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon in association with A Kid Named Beckett Productions.