Michael Frayn's Alphabetical Order and Benefactors On Tap at Keen Company

Off-Broadway’s Keen Company will celebrate its 10th season with a salute to British playwright Michael Frayn, including productions of Alphabetical Order and a 25th anniversary mounting of Benefactors. Both plays will be presented at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row.

First up is Alphabetical Order, which will begin previews on September 14 and open on September 26, directed by Keen artistic director Carl Forsman. The show is scheduled for a limited engagement through October 26 with a cast that will include Brad Bellamy, William Connell, John Windsor Cunningham, Margaret Daly, Paul Molnar, Angela Reed and Audrey Lynn Weston.

Alphabetical Order was first produced at Britain’s Hampstead Theater in 1975, and was revived in 2009 in a revised version that will receive its U.S. premiere at Keen Company. The original production of the play transferred to the West End and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy. The following year, it was produced at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT.

The play is set in a provincial newspaper office in the 1970s, where it’s just another day of chaos in the cuttings library: files all over the floor, phones ringing…but where is Lucy the librarian? Her life (when she finally arrives), and the lives of the journalists who take refuge in her muddled retreat, turn out to be as confused as the library itself. Into this comfortable little world steps Lesley, Lucy's new assistant. She's young, bright and wants system and order. Things are about to change.

No casting information or dates have been released for Benefactors, which will be produced in spring 2011. The original Broadway production of this dark comedy about two marriages in the 1960s opened on December 23, 1985, starring Glenn Close, Sam Waterston, Mary Beth Hurt and Simon Jones. The play ran for 217 performances and was nominated for a Best Play Tony Award.