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,
Uncle Vanya improved. "Uncle Vanya" became a permanent fixture in the Moscow Art Theatre. Other actors who have appeared in notable stage productions of "Uncle Vanya" include Franchot Tone, Cate Blanchett, Peter Dinklage, Jacki Weaver, Antony Sher, Ian McKellen, William Hurt, George C. Scott, Donald Sinden, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtney, Trevor Eve and Laurence Olivier. The play was also adapted as the new stage-play "Dear Uncle" by the British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, who reset it in the 1930s Lake District—this adaptation premiered from July to September 2011 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. <poem>Are you Uncle Vanya? I am. [Gunshot sounds]