Kathleen Turner has signed on to co-star with Charles Busch in the off-Broadway production of actor/playwright’s latest comedy, The Third Story, for MCC Theater. Performances begin at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on January 14, 2009, with opening night set for February 2. The limited engagement will continue through February 28, directed by Carl Andress.

In The Third Story, a mother and son screenwriting team hunker down in Omaha after fleeing Commie-obsessed 1940s Hollywood. A romantically-inclined but socially inept princess makes a deal with an ancient witch. And tommy guns meet test tubes as a way-too-well-dressed first lady of the mob forms a desperate alliance with a cloning scientist whose experiments have had, um, less-than-consistent results. Gangster flicks, fairy tales and B-movie sci-fi collide in this epic comic fable.

Turner received a Tony nomination for the 2005 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and won the Evening Standard Award and an Olivier nomination for the West End production. Last season, she directed the off-Broadway revival of Crimes of the Heart. Her other Broadway credits include The Graduate, Indiscretions, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Gemini. She toured the U.S. as Tallulah Bankhead in the solo show Tallulah and starred in Travesties, The Seagull, Toyer and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Arena Stage. The Third Story marks her first appearance in a fully staged off-Broadway play in more than 30 years. The star of such films as Body Heat, Romancing the Stone, Prizzi’s Honor, Peggy Sue Got Married, Serial Mom and War of the Roses, Turner released her autobiography, Send Yourself Roses earlier this year.

Further casting of the six-character play will be announced shortly. The play ran at La Jolla Playhouse in October with a cast that included Mary Beth Peil (in the roles to be played by Turner), Jonathan Walker, Scott Parkinson, Jennifer van Dyck and Rebecca Lawrence.