Plays by Busch, Odets, Rudnick, et al. Scheduled for MTC’s 2006-2007 Season

New works by Charles Busch and Paul Rudnick are among the plays scheduled for presentation by Manhattan Theatre Club next season, along with a revival of Clifford Odets’s The Country Girl.

MTC’s season at Broadway’s Biltmore Theatre will begin on September 21 with the American premiere of Simon Mendes Da Costa’s Losing Louie, about two generations of a family who work things out in the same bedroom, 50 years apart. Directed by Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, the production will open officially on October 12. The Country Girl, Odets’s drama about a faded theater star, his unhappy wife, and a young director, will be helmed by MTC artistic director Lynne Meadow. The show is scheduled to begin performances on April 12 and to open officially on May 3. The company’s third production at the Biltmore in 2007-2008 is yet to be announced.

MTC’s season at its Off-Broadway venue on West 55th Street will include the world premiere on Stage 1 of Rudnick’s modern-day comedy of manners Regrets Only, scheduled to begin performances on October 19 and to open officially on November 14. Christopher Ashley, Rudnick’s frequent collaborator, will direct. Next up on Stage 1, British playwright David Harrower’s acclaimed drama Blackbird will begin performances on March 15 in advance of an April 10 opening. No director has yet been announced.

Busch’s Our Leading Lady, which MTC had once announced for production this season, will begin previews in the Stage II theater on November 30 in advance of an official opening on December 19. Meadow will direct this play about Laura Keane, the actress who was performing onstage at Ford’s Theatre in Our American Cousin the night that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

For more information, visit www.manhattantheatre.club.com.