Butley, with Nathan Lane, Hits the Booth in October

Butley is a dark comedy about the unfortunate life of a literary professor who suffers the loss of his wife and his lover all in one day. When Butley's estranged wife Anne announces her intention to marry a mutual friend, and his live-in lover and office mate Joey moves out to join another man, Butley is even more out of sorts than usual. And to top it off, his ill-respected colleague has just published her book on Byron—a task 20 years in the making. Butley, with Alan Bates in the title role, originally opened on Broadway on October 31, 1972 and ran through February 24, 1973.

Lane starred in Butley at the Huntington in Boston in late 2003. In his review of that mounting, The New York Times' Bruce Weber wrote: "It is after intermission that Mr. Lane's portrayal of a man who is holding on by his last few fingernails becomes rivetingly sorrowful. His naturally high-pitched voice gives even Butley's most agonizing exclamations a hint of desperate jokiness; the laughter he evokes is almost always the nervous kind. And that, coupled with the character's frantic compulsion to elicit bad news, reveal his insecurities, bully even those who are likely to strike back with force and otherwise hold himself up for humiliation, gives Mr. Lane's performance a memorably pitiful air."

Nicholas Martin, who directed the play at Huntington, will reprise his duties on Broadway. Butley is scheduled to officially open on October 25.

The Booth is currently home to the limited engagement of Faith Healer, which is scheduled to close on August 13.