Williamstown Casting: Sparks Heads West, Rubinstein Carries a Torch

There are more comings and goings and additions to the casting slate at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Paul Sparks—recently seen sending Mary-Louise Parker into a fiery rage in Hedda Gabler—will replace Bradley Cooper and star opposite Nate Corddry in Sam Shepard’s True West. (Cooper had been a replacement for Nate real-life brother Rob Corddry.) Daniel Goldstein’s Main Stage production—which also features Our House’s Stephen Kunken and Debra Jo Rupp (That ’70s Show)—runs July 15-26.

And Blithe Spirit star Jayne Atkinson has withdrawn from the Maria (The 39 Steps) Aitken-directed, Jefferson Mays-starring Quartermaine’s Terms due to scheduling conflicts. Ann Dowd (Polina in the Royal Court’s Seagull on Broadway) will step into the Simon Gray play August 12-23 on the Main Stage.

Tony winner John Rubinstein (Children of a Lesser God) joins the already-starry cast—Dana Ivey, Becky Ann Baker, Katie Finneran, Marian Seldes, Edward Herrmann, Jessica Hecht—of The Torch-Bearers, Dylan Baker’s adaptation of George Kelly’s farce. The Baker-directed production runs July 29 through August 9 on the Main Stage.

And on the Nikos Stage July 22 to August.2, Betty Gilpin (Boys’ Life and Good Boys and True at Second Stage) and Wendie Malick (TV’s Just Shoot Me) will star in What Is the Cause of Thunder? , a comedy about daytime drama from Noah Haidle (Saturn Returns,Mr. Marmalade).

Also on the WTF slate this season: A.R. Gurney’s Children (July 1-12) and the world premieres of Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Knickerbocker (July 8-19) and Melinda Lopez’s Caroline in Jersey (August 5-16). Williamstown Theatre Festival is located in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts; Nicholas Martin—who just helmed Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them at the Public Theater—currently serves as the artistic director.