Paul Mescal to Star in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ in New York and London

Paul Mescal will make his American stage debut this coming spring. 

Following his starring role in Gladiator II, Mescal will reprise his role in Rebecca Frecknall’s stage revival of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. The revival will run Off-Broadway at BAM, or the Brooklyn Academy of Music, from Feb. 28 through April 6. 

Before coming to New York, the production will play London’s West End again, at the Noël Coward Theater, from Feb. 3 through Feb. 22. Frecknall’s production of the play was first staged at London’s Almeida Theater in 2022, before transferring to the West End in 2023. The director is currently represented on Broadway by the revival of Cabaret.

The play follows Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who has experienced a series of personal misfortunes, as she moves to New Orleans in the apartment rented by her younger sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley.

Mescal, who is playing Stanley Kowalski, the role made famous by Marlon Brando in the initial Broadway production in 1947 and the 1951 film, will star alongside Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts) and Patsy Ferren (Pygmalion), as Stella Kowalski and Blanche DuBois, respectively. Both Vasan and Ferren appeared with Mescal in London. Mescal and Vasan both won Olivier Awards for their portrayals and the production won the Olivier for best revival.

The revival was also a hot ticket in the West End, with a reviewer for THR saying: “Young talent is bursting from the seams of this latest London revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. The result is a clear-eyed, vital, visceral production — sexy at times, but with a sort of primal danger running through it.”

Mescal returns to the production after his co-starring role in the upcoming film Gladiator II, opposite Denzel Washington. He rose to fame in the 2020 series Normal People, and has also had breakout roles in The Lost Daughter, Aftersun and All of Us Strangers.

A Streetcar Named Desire is produced by ATG Productions and Almeida Theatre. The creative team includes scenic design by Madeleine Girling; lighting design by Lee Curran; sound design by Peter Rice; costume design by Merle Hensel and composition by Angus MacRae.