Theater News

Birney, LaChanze, Overbey, et al. Added to Playwrights Horizons Season

LaChanze
(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)
LaChanze
(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)

Additional casting has been announced for three productions in Playwrights Horizons’ 2008-2009 season.

Zachary Booth completes the cast of the New York City premiere of Craig Lucas’ Prayer for My Enemy, to be directed by Tony winner Bartlett Sher, November 4-December 21 with an opening December 9. As previously announced, the play will also star Cassie Beck, Victoria Clark, Jonathan Groff, Michelle Pawk, and Skipp Sudduth. The creative team includes John McDermott (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Stephen Strawbridge (lighting), and Scott Lehrer (sound). The show focuses on one night in the troubled Noone household, and the relationship between son Billy, just back from Iraq, and childhood friend Tad, now married to Billy’s sister.

Reed Birney and Kellie Overbey will join previously announced cast members Dana Ivey and Marylouise Burke for Evan Smith’s The Savannah Disputation, directed by Walter Bobbie, which will run February 6-March 15, with an opening on March 3. The play concerns Margaret, a susceptible Catholic Spinster, whose faith begins to waver — much to the chagrin of her feisty sister — after she admits a Pentecostal missionary into her home.

Tony Award winner LaChanze will star in the world premiere of Christina Anderson’s Inked Baby (March 5-April 5, opening March 23), along with Angela Lewis, Nana Mensah, and Obie winner Nikkole Salter. The play, which begins previews on March 5 under the direction of Kate Whoriskey, is about a woman who enlists the aid of her sister to make the child she and her husband can’t.

Playwrights Horizons has also announced the dates for its final production, Theresa Rebeck’s Our House, which will be directed by Michael Mayer and run May 15-June 21, with an opening set for June 9. The comedy is about a power-hungry TV mogul faced with dwindling ratings who installs America’s favorite news anchor as host of a popular reality show.

For more information, visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.