Keir Dullea to Star in I Never Sang for My Father at Keen Company

Keen Company’s 10th anniversary season will include a revival of Robert Anderson’s I Never Sang for My Father starring Keir Dullea as well as an evening of five short plays by Thornton Wilder. Both productions will be performed at the Clurman Theater on Theater Row.

The season will begin with Such Things Only Happen in Books, the collection of Wilder plays, running October 6-November 14 and directed by Keen artistic director Carl Forsman, Henry Wishcamper and Jonathan Silverstein. No casting has been announced.

According to Forsman, whose credits include well-reviewed mountings of Wilder’s Pullman Car Hiawatha and Theophilus North at Keen, the title play, Such Things Only Happen in Books, was never performed in Wilder’s lifetime and the other four works have never been produced professionally in New York. “I love all five,” Forsman says, “but the final piece, The Angel That Troubled the Water, contains my favorite line in any play he wrote. You’ll have to come hear it for yourself.”

Dullea, star of the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey and Broadway plays including Butterflies Are Free, will headline a revival of I Never Sang for My Father, directed by Jonathan Silverstein. Dates for the spring 2010 production have not been finalized. A moving tale about family and aging, the play debuted on Broadway in 1968 and was made into a popular feature film two years later.

Keen also announced a one-night-only revival of Conor McPherson’s haunting monologue The Good Thief, with Shrek star Brian d’Arcy James reprising his Obie Award-winning 2001 performance. The event will be held on November 2 at the Lucille Lortel Theater.