Montauk

Montauk is a new drama by the English playwright David Hare, and its very first performances anywhere are planned for Broadway. It is an original script rather than an adaptation of a novel or a film, and it is neither a revival nor a transfer from another stage. Manhattan Theatre Club is producing the world premiere at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre as part of its 2026–2027 season, with performances due to begin in spring 2027.

The play follows two artists, a writer and a painter, whose love affair and working lives become wound around each other. Beneath the romance lies a collision between two sharply opposed ideas about art and about how to live, along with a harder question: what are people willing to give up for the work they love?

As of October 2026, Laura Linney is cast as the writer Roxy Margaux, and Daniel Sullivan directs. The production also brings Hare back to Broadway for the first time since Skylight was revived there in 2015.

Only the premise had been made public by October 2026. Roxy Margaux is a writer who has already found success and a public reputation. Jared Speight is an abstract painter with an established name on the Long Island art scene and a strong will to match. What first draws Roxy to him is his swagger and self-assurance.

From there the play follows the couple through more than 10 years, tracking the romance and both careers side by side. The longer they are together, the plainer it becomes that they make art for very different reasons, and the play turns on that difference.

Montauk itself is a hamlet at the far eastern end of Long Island's South Fork, about 118 miles east of New York City. The announcements do not say whether any of the action takes place there.

As of October 2026, Laura Linney is the only announced member of the cast. The actor who will play Jared Speight, the rest of the company and the design team have not been named, so nothing has been published yet about the staging or the sets.

Linney has won four Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes, and her film roles in The Savages, Kinsey and You Can Count on Me brought her three Academy Award nominations. She is also a multiple Tony nominee. Away from Manhattan Theatre Club, her Broadway credits include The Crucible, Uncle Vanya and Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Her ties to the company go back to Beggars in the House of Plenty in 1991, followed by an Off-Broadway production of Sight Unseen in 1992. With the company on Broadway she has since played in My Name Is Lucy Barton and in four productions directed by Sullivan: a separate Broadway staging of Sight Unseen, The Little Foxes, Summer, 1976 and Time Stands Still.

In March 2025, a different plan for the play was reported: a spring Broadway run under producer Scott Rudin, starring Laurie Metcalf and directed by Joe Mantello.

On April 28, 2026, Manhattan Theatre Club announced its own production, led by Linney and directed by Sullivan; Rudin, Metcalf and Mantello were not part of that announcement. At the same time, the company named Linney its first Artist-in-Residence, a post that involves helping develop projects for future seasons and joining its education and community programs.