Brandon Flynn and Robin Lord Taylor Are Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams in New Off-Broadway Play (Exclusive)

Brandon Flynn and Robin Lord Taylor are bringing two pop-culture giants back to the theater.

PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the two actors — Flynn, 31, of 13 Reasons Why fame and Talyor, 46, known for his role in Gotham — will star as actor Marlon Brando and playwright Tennessee Williams in Kowalski, respectively, a new play by Gregg Ostrin inspired by the true story of their infamous first meeting.

Preview performances begin Jan. 12, 2025, ahead of an opening night on Jan. 25 at The Duke on 42nd Street at New 42 Studios in New York City. The play, directed by Colin Hanlon, will run through Feb. 16, 2025.

Other stars include Alison Cimmet (as director Margo Jones), Ellie Ricker (as Jo) and Sebastian Treviño (as Pancho Rodriguez).

As legend goes it, Brando and Williams first crossed paths in 1947, when Brando — then a 23-year-old actor with a number of Broadway credits, but still somewhat unknown — came up from New York City to Provincetown, Mass. to audition for the role of Stanley Kowalski in Williams’ new play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

Brando had initially tried to back out of the audition, worried, as he wrote in his 1994 book, that it was “a size too large.” But when he called director Elia Kazan to turn it down, the line was busy. And by the time they talked, he felt convinced he could give it a shot.

Now it was just time to get Williams on board. As Kazan recalled in his 1997 memoir, he gave Brando $20 to get himself up to Provincetown. “After three days I called Tennessee and asked him what he’d thought of the actor I’d sent him. ‘What actor?’ he asked,” Kazan said. “No one had showed up, so I figured I’d lost 20 bucks and began to look elsewhere.”

But Brando did show up — just a few days later. Turns out, despite the $20, he was flat broke and decided to hitchhike to the Cape Cod destination with his girlfriend instead. “He was just about the best looking man I’ve ever seen,” said Williams in his 1975 autobiography, Memoirs.

It gets crazier from there. The Glass Menagerie playwright recounted that his house was in “domestic cataclysm” when Brando showed up. A light fuse had blown, and there were troubles with the pipes, the bathroom blocked and water flooding the kitchen floor. So Brando got to work — just not on his audition.

“First he stuck his hand into the overflowing toilet bowl and unclogged the drain, then he tackled the fuses. Within an hour, everything worked,” Williams said. “You’d think he had spent his entire antecedent life repairing drains. Then he read the script aloud, just as he played it. It was the most magnificent reading I ever heard, and he had the part immediately.”

A Streetcar Named Desire would catapult Brando into stardom. Though he’d never return to Broadway again, he’d go on to have a six-decade career on screen including in the 1951 film adaptation of the play. He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, and counts two Oscars among his number of accolades.

Williams, meanwhile, would continue to thrive as a playwright, penning hits like The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer and Sweet Bird of Youth (among many, many others) and winning two Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards. He’d also write screenplays, teleplays, short stories, novels and poetry.

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It’s unclear how much of that will make its way into Kowalski. Per an official release, the play “transports audiences to a pivotal moment in theatrical history, exploring the tangled relationships and creative tensions surrounding Williams as he crafts his masterpiece.”

The play “unfolds over one sultry night,” and “offers a behind-the-scenes look at the raw forces that birthed one of the 20th century’s greatest works, weaving memory and myth into a haunting exploration of ambition, artistry, and desire.”

Tickets for Kowalski are now on sale.