André Holland, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz & Stephen McKinley Henderson to star in Andre Gaines’ Adaptation Of Amiri Baraka Play ‘The Dutchman’
Deadline reports that André Holland, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz and Stephen McKinley Henderson are set to star in The Dutchman, a psychological thriller based on the Obie Award-winning play by Amiri Baraka. It has also landed a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement.
Andre Gaines is directing the film from a script co-written with filmmaker Qasim Basir. Production kicks off in New York City September 25th, putting a group of 150 or so back to work.
Set on a New York subway, The Dutchman centers on an encounter between a well-to-do Black man and an enchanting white woman who match wits in a sexualized game of cat and mouse that leads to a violent conclusion. The searing confrontation amplifies the dimensions of racial conflict in America in this adaptation of the stage show first presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York City, in March 1964, which was later adapted into a critically acclaimed 1966 film starring Shirley Knight and Al Freeman Jr.
Gaines previously helmed the documentaries The One and Only Dick Gregory and After Jackie. Production kicks off in New York City September 25th, putting a group of 150 or so back to work. He will produce The Dutchman through his multi-platform media company, Cinemation Studios. Producing alongside him is Jonathan T. Baker, the Emmy nominee known for Sylvie’s Love, The Banker, and Crown Heights. Joshua Blum and Han West are exec producing for Washington Square Films, with UTA Independent Film Group repping sales.
Basir recently wrote and directed To Live and Die and Live, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.