`Cat' coming back to Broadway in March

Big Daddy is coming back to Broadway. Not to mention Brick, Maggie and Big Mama, too.

An all-black revival of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," directed by Debbie Allen, will open March 7 at the Broadhurst Theatre, producer Stephen C. Byrd announced Tuesday.

James Earl Jones will star as the Mississippi patriarch Big Daddy; Phylicia Rashad will be his wife, Big Mama; Terrence Howard plays his alcoholic son, Brick, and Anika Noni Rose portrays Maggie, Brick's frustrated wife. Preview performances begin Feb. 12.

The production will be the fourth Broadway revival of the play, one of Williams' most popular dramas. The original production opened in New York in 1955 starring Burl Ives, Mildred Dunnock, Ben Gazzara and Barbara Bel Geddes (as Maggie). The 1958 movie version starred Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, along with Ives and Judith Anderson.

Other Broadway productions of "Cat" include a 1974 revival starring Elizabeth Ashley and Keir Dullea; one in 1990 with Kathleen Turner and Daniel Hugh Kelly, and a third in 2003 with Ashley Judd and Jason Patric.