Keira Knightley to Star in West End Production of 'The Children's Hour'

Rumor has it that Keira Knightley will make her West End debut as a sexy suspected lesbian in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour.

The plan is to open the show in London early next year and then, if it's successful, to take it to Broadway, reports the New York Post, although details are still being worked out.

Hellman’s 1934 play was banned in Boston but opened in Paris to sensational reviews before debuting on Broadway in 1936. It instantly turned Hellman into one of the most famous writers of her day.

The play is set in a girls' boarding school and tells the story of two female teachers whose lives are destroyed when one of their students spreads the rumor that they're lovers.

Acclaimed director William Wyler helmed the 1961 big screen version of Hellman’s play starring Shirley MacLaine as the tortured closeted lesbian Martha Dobie and Audrey Hepburn as her business partner and woman she loves Karen Wright. Hollywood watered down the lesbian undertones so as to be nearly unrecognizable but those reading between the lines could discern the homosexual subtext.

No word yet on who'll play Knightley's "special friend", but the production will be directed by Ian Rickson, who staged a terrific revival of The Seagull on Broadway.