Anne Hathaway, Julie Taymor to team off-Broadway

Anne Hathaway is returning to the New York stage, with a celebrated — and sometimes controversial -— director.

It was announced Wednesday that Hathaway will appear off-Broadway this spring in the Public Theater's production of George Brant's play Grounded. The film star will be directed by Julie Taymor, whose many stage and screen credits include the Tony Award-winning The Lion King and another, less widely embraced Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which she co-conceived and helmed before famously being relieved of her directing duties.

As for Hathaway, it marks her first Big Apple theater gig since another Public staging, the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night. In Grounded, she'll play a fighter pilot assigned to a remote-controlled zone; the play previously earned acclaim in the U.K.

Grounded is set to begin performances April 7, open April 23 and run through May 17.