Jen Silverman's Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties Replaces Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Pretty Happy at MCC Theater

Off-Broadway's MCC Theater has announced the New York premiere production of Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, written by Jen Silverman (The Moors) and directed by Mike Donahue (The Legend of Georgia McBride). The new comedy will begin previews at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on August 16 with an official opening night set for September 12. The new work replaces MCC's recently canceled production of Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Pretty Happy.

Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties centers on five different women named Betty: one rich, one lonely, one charismatic, one lovelorn and one who keeps working on her truck. One of them has decided to stage a production of that play within a play.

Jen Silverman's stage works include The Moors, The Roommate, Phoebe in Winter and All the Roads Home. She is a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Award, an LMCC Fellowship and the Yale Drama Series Award.

The full title of Silverman's new play is Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties; In Essence, a Queer and Occasionally Hazardous Exploration; Do You Remember When You Were in Middle School and You Read About Shackleton and How He Explored the Antarctic? Imagine the Antarctic as a Pussy and It’s Sort of Like That.

Casting and full creative team for the production will be announced at a later date.