Vanya on 42nd Street Vanya on 42nd Street Vanya on 42nd Street is a 1994 film directed by Louis Malle and screenplay by Andre Gregory. The film is an intimate, interpretive performance of the play "Uncle Vanya" by Anton Chekhov as adapted by David Mamet. The film stars Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore. Over the course of three years, director Andre Gregory and a group of actors came together on a voluntary basis in order to better understand Chekhov's work through performance workshops. Staged and filmed entirely within the vacant shell of the then-abandoned New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street in New York City,
Ann Dunnigan but Dunnigan contested that van Itallie's translation was nearly identical to hers, and sued him. In the settlement that followed, van Itallie accepted responsibility for the legal costs, and agreed to cease promotion of his version. Years later, van Itallie applied himself to new renderings of "The Cherry Orchard", "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", and "Uncle Vanya". In the introduction to Applause Books' 1995 compilation of these, van Itallie asserts that he "worked on "The Sea Gull", and later the other three plays, with a specially-made literal English translation and a selection of French translations." Dunnigan's final stage performance was in