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Starz’s upcoming Flesh and Bone drama has added a Tony nominee to its cast.
Ben Daniels, who scored a Tony nom in 2008 for his Broadway debut in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, has booked a co-starring role in the cabler’s ballet drama.
The drama centers on Claire (Black Swan’s Sarah Hay), who has a distinctly troubled past, as she joins a prestigious ballet company in New York. The dark and gritty series will unflinchingly explore the dysfunction and glamour of the ballet world. Hay’s Claire is further described as a beautiful, soulful and deeply emotionally wounded young woman who possesses an innate innocence and fragility while at the same time harboring self-destructive tendencies and a vaulting ambition. She is a transcendent ballerina, capable of reaching the sublime, but her inner torment and aspirations drive her in compelling, unforeseeable ways.
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Daniels (House of Cards, Law & Order: UK) will play Paul Grayson, the volatile and brilliant artistic director. He joins a cast that includes former American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenko, ABT soloist Sascha Radetsky, Ballet Arizona company dancer Raychel Diane Weiner and Boardwalk Empire‘s Emily Tyra.
Oscar nominee Lawrence Bender (Inglourious Basterds, Good Will Hunting), Kevin Brown (Roswell) and John Melfi (Sex and the City, House of Cards) will executive produce for Starz alongside Walley-Beckett, who serves as writer. Bender, Brown and Walley-Beckett all have ties to the ballet world, with Bender and Walley-Beckett both former dancers and Brown’s family comprising dancers and serving as the basis for the Oscar-nominated feature The Turning Point. Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Ethan Stiefel (Center Stage, Center Stage: Turn It Up) — the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet and a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre from 1997-2012 — serves as a consultant and choreographer on the series.
Production will begin in the spring in New York for a debut on Starz in 2015.
Daniels is repped by DBA and Hamilton Hodell.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
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