George Clooney is headed back to television…just not the way you think.
Unlike former co-star Noah Wyle’s return to the medical procedural genre with “The Pitt,” Clooney will be taking to the small screen via The Great White Way. For the last few months, he’s been performing at Broadway‘s Winter Garden Theatre in a theatrical adaptation of his 2005 Oscar-nominated biopic “Good Night and Good Luck.” Now he’ll bring that story back to the place it first started: on television.
Airing Saturday, June 7 on CNN, CNN will air a live performance of “Good Night and Good Luck” in what will be the Broadway show’s penultimate performance. It’s also the first time in Broadway history a play has been televised live.
As per The New York Times, the play will be preceded and followed by coverage and discussion around the show, it’s history, and the current state of journalism. The play covers a period of time in 1953 when stalwart newsman Edward R. Murrow and his team of reporters took aim at Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. At the time, his House Un-American Activities Committee was causing undue terror around the nation, but thanks to Murrow’s newscasts on CBS, the junior senator from Wisconsin was ultimately investigated and censured by 1954.
Echoing the value of how news can make an impact, Clooney chose to partner with CNN to broadcast “Good Night and Good Luck” as a symbol of journalism’s enduring strength.
“We were looking at taking the play on the road, and taking it to London, and taking it to Paris, but we also thought it never is going to be exactly what it is right now, with the same cast, and we thought it would be nice to have a record of it,” Clooney told the New York Times. “And then we thought, because the newscasts are all done live, it is the perfect thing to try to create on live television, which is always exciting — there’s no safety net, and it’s a fun thing to do.”
In addition to streaming the play live, Clooney is also in the process of negotiating a deal for the live recording to be hosted on a streaming platform later on.
Before co-writing the screenplay with producing partner Grant Heslov and then directing the film version, Clooney initially envisioned “Good Night and Good Luck” as a televised play, similar to how “12 Angry Men” and “Marty” were mounted during the actual 1950s. Getting the chance to showcase the material in this manner brings his relationship to the story full circle, but the Tony-nominated actor doesn’t think its themes will ever go out of style.
“Unfortunately, this play always is timely,” Clooney said. “What journalists do for a living is always going to be challenged by people in power — they don’t like it unless they can control it.”
The Broadway production co-stars Ilana Glazer, Glenn Fleshler, Clark Gregg, Carter Hudson, Christopher Denham, Fran Kranz, Mac Brandt, Will Dagger, and Georgia Heers.
