Annie Parisse, Frank Wood & More Set for Clybourne Park at Playwrights Horizons

Law & Order alum Annie Parisse and Tony Award winner Frank Wood are among the complete cast for Playwrights Horizons’ forthcoming world premiere production of Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park. The play will begin previews on January 29, 2010, at the company’s Mainstage Theater and will open on February 21, directed by Pam MacKinnon. The limited engagement will continue through March 7.

Joining Parisse (whose New York theater credits include Becky Shaw and Prelude to a Kiss) and Wood (Side Man, August: Osage County) will be Jeremy Shamos (100 Saints You Should Know, Miss Witherspoon, Reckless), Crystal A. Dickinson (Ruined, Broke-ology), Brendan Griffin (Back Back Back at the Old Globe), Damon Gupton (Inked Baby) and Christina Kirk (God’s Suitcase, [sic]).

Loosely inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park is described as a pitch-black comedy that takes on the specter of gentrification in one of America’s most recognizable communities. In 1959, a white family moves out. In 2009, a white family moves in. In the intervening years, change overtakes a neighborhood, along with attitudes, inhabitants and property values.

Clybourne Park will be Norris’ first play to debut in New York after five world premieres at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. Playwrights Horizons presented the New York debut of his dark comedy The Pain and the Itch in 2006, directed by MacKinnon. The production will feature scenic design by Dan Ostling, costume design by Ilona Somogyi, lighting design by Allen Lee Hughes and sound design by John Gromada.