John Lithgow, Theresa Rebeck and More On Tap for New Mark Taper Forum Season

Productions of John Lithgow’s solo show Stories by Heart, Theresa Rebeck's The Novelist, the Olympia Dukakis-headed Vigil and a revival of Lanford Wilson’s Burn This will round out the Mark Taper Forum 2010-2011 season, the Los Angeles-based company has announced. The shows join the previously announced remounting of Moises Kaufman’s drama 33 Variations, starring Jane Fonda.

The Mark Taper season opens with Lithgow’s Stories by Heart, running January 4, 2011, through February 13. Describe as “a theatrical memoir,” the show features Lithgow retelling works by P.G. Wodehouse and Ring Lardner. Lithgow, a Tony Award winner for The Changing Room and The Sweet Smell of Success, most recently appeared off-Broadway in the comedy Mr. & Mrs. Fitch.

Burn This, helmed by Nicholas Martin, will begin on March 23 for a limited engagement running through May 1. The drama centers on a dancer and choreographer whose grief over the death of her longtime partner and roommate causes a shift in both her life and career. The show, which moved to Broadway in 1987, had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum.

Rebeck's The Novelist will begin on September 7 and run through October 16. The play follows the story of a novelist, his wife and their dysfunctional sons after a cunning female assistant upends their lives.

The season concludes with Morris Panych’s two-hander Vigil, running November 2 through December 18. The production, directed by the author and starring Marco Barricelli (Broadway’s Tamara) and Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck, Steel Magnolias), tells the story of a man tending to his dying aunt after an unexpected letter reunites them.

As previously announced, 33 Variations will play from January 30 through March 6 at the Ahmanson Theatre.