Broad­way smash The Humans is com­ing to the sil­ver screen

Scott Rudin is the clas­sic Hol­ly­wood pow­er-pro­duc­er, the kind of indus­try heavy­weight whose favor can land ambi­tious con­cepts a green light and, if they play their cards right, Oscar gold. When he announces a new project, the show­biz savvy prick up their ears and take note.

So, for every­one else: today’s news (via Dead­line) that Rudin will team with A24 to pro­duce a film adap­ta­tion of Broad­way sen­sa­tion The Humans is, in the most dic­tio­nary-def­i­n­i­tion lit­er­al sense, a big deal.

The play took the New York the­atre scene by storm in 2016, rack­ing up Tonys, Dra­ma Desk Awards, and even a final­ist dis­tinc­tion for the Pulitzer Prize. Stephen Karam’s per­spec­tive on a fray­ing Amer­i­can soci­ety, as fil­tered through the micro­cos­mic lens of one fam­i­ly break­ing apart, struck a chord with both crit­ics and audiences.

In the upcom­ing film adap­ta­tion, vet­er­an board-tread­er Jayne Houdyshell will reprise her award-fes­tooned role of Deirde, the moth­er of the Blake clan. For her hus­band Erik, A24 has signed Richard Jenk­ins, and their adult daugh­ters Brigid and Aimee will be por­trayed by Amy Schumer and the cur­rent­ly-on-a-roll Beanie Feldstein.

As the odd man out, vis­it­ing boyfriend Richard meet­ing the par­ents for the first time, Steven Yeun will com­plete the cast. In the play, every­one con­venes for a din­ner that grad­u­al­ly exac­er­bates ten­sions of along class, sex­u­al, and gen­er­a­tional lines until the cus­tom­ary out­bursts. (The August: Osage Coun­ty spe­cial, as some may call it.)

Karam will draw up the script for shoot­ing per­son­al­ly, and in a less fre­quent occur­rence, the play­wright will make his debut as direc­tor behind the cam­era of this pro­duc­tion. It’s a risky move, plac­ing such a high-pro­file project under the stew­ard­ship of a first-timer, but such is the pow­er of Rudin. When his pref­er­ence shines on you, so too does the sun.

The Humans has yet to set a release date.