In the 1940s through the 1960s, columnists were celebrities and Washington DC's Joseph Alsop was the starriest of them all. Beloved, feared, and courted in equal measure by the Washington political world at whose center he sat, the role of the iconic newsman is being taken on by John Lithgow in The Columnist.

We're honoring him here this week for returning to his theatre roots in another tour de force performance. In 1973, he won a Tony Award three weeks after his Broadway debut, in David Storey's The Changing Room. Since then, Lithgow has appeared on Broadway a whopping 19 more times, earning another Tony, three more Tony nominations, four Drama Desk Awards, and induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Now, in The Columnist, the Character Approved Lithgow is embroiled in a fantastic political drama, based on a real-life character who's faced with a changing world at the dawn of the '60s.

For more information on show, visit the Manhattan Theatre Club website.

[Image: Joan Marcus]