Week in Culture

The star castings continue to hit Broadway, and in a season that has seen Jude Law, Sienna Miller, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Stamos, and Gina Gershon attempt the main stage, this week news broke that both Scarlett Johansson and Abigail Breslin will be trekking in from Los Angeles for theater turns. Johansson will debut on Broadway opposite Liev Schreiber in Arthur Miller’s Tony-winning A View from the Bridge, about a Brooklyn dockworker obsessed with his teenage niece. In other big theater news, 13-year-old Breslin will play Helen Keller in a revival of The Miracle Worker, and deaf/blind advocacy groups have already started protesting. “We do not think it’s OK for reputable producers to cast this lead role without seriously considering an actress from our community,” Sharon Jensen, executive director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, told The New York Times. The producers have come back with the argument that without a proven star, it's tough to open a new Broadway show. So many morality issues, so little time.