Ron Eldard, Kate Beahan Featured in Neil LaBute’s Helter Skelter at Open Fist’s First Look Festival

Ron Eldard and Kate Beahan have been cast in Neil LaBute’s Helter Skelter, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog. The play is part of Hollywood’s Open Fist Theatre’s First Look Festival of New Plays, to run July 23-September 13. The festival will feature four full productions and six staged readings and concert events.

In Helter Skelter, an attempted cell phone call exposes the relationship of a seemingly happily married couple. Both Eldard and Beahan, who play the husband and wife, have worked with LaBute previously. Eldard’s relationship with LaBute goes back to at least 1999, when the actor was cast in Bash: Latter Day Plays.Beahan worked with LaBute on his movie The Wicker Man.

Alongside this piece will be another world premiere by LaBute: The New Testament, about a writer and producer trying to recast an important new role in a Broadway show. Feaured in “Testament” will be Tim Banning, Benjamin Burdick (who was in LaBute’s Autobahn at the Open Fist in 2006) and Peter James Smith. The plays will be performed August 20-23, August 30, September 3-4 and 12.

Other participants in the festival include playwrights Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig,
Steven Charles Haworth, Karen Hartman, Rick Pagano, George Brant, Mark Wilson, Rolfe Kent, Brooke Berman and Julie Hebert, and directors Alex Wright, Bjorn Johnson, Marya Mazor, Charles Otte, Michael Franco, Martha Demson, Caitlin Moon, and Randee Trabitz.

For tickets and information, call 323-882-6912 or visit www.openfist.org.