Groff, Ivey, O’Toole, Tierney, et al. Set for Playwrights Horizons Season

Playwrights Horizons has announced all six plays and preliminary casting for its 2008-2009 season.

First up will be Aya Cash, Brian J. Smith, and Maura Tierney in the world premiere of Nicky Silver’s Three Changes, beginning previews on August 22. The production, to be directed by Tony Award nominee Wilson Milam, is about an Upper West Side couple whose comfortable marriage is disrupted when the husband’s wayward brother arrives from Hollywood.

In the fall, Adam Rapp will direct the world premiere of his new play, Kindness, starring Annette O’Toole, Ray Anthony Thomas, and Katherine Waterston. The work is about an ailing mother and her teenage son who flee Illinois and a crumbling marriage for the relative calm and safety of a midtown Manhattan hotel.

Next up, Bartlett Sher will stage the New York City premiere of Craig Lucas’ Prayer for My Enemy, to star Cassie Beck, Jonathan Groff, and Skipp Sudduth. The play is about childhood friends Tad and Billy, who are unexpectedly reunited as adults when Tad returns home divorced and Billy is about to be sent to Iraq.

The theater’s fourth play will be Evan Smith’s The Savannah Disputation, to star Dana Ivey under the direction of Walter Bobbie. The play concerns Margaret, a susceptible Catholic Spinster, whose faith begins to waiver — much to the chagrin of her feisty sister (Ivey) — after she admits a Pentecostal missionary into her home.

Up next will be the world premiere of Christina Anderson’s Inked Baby, to be directed by Kate Whoriskey, about a woman who enlists the aid of her sister to make the child she and her husband can’t.

The season will conclude with Theresa Rebeck’s Our House, to be directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer, a comedy 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.