CSC's False Servant Loses Abraham But Gains Plimpton, Buell and Lazar

F. Murray Abraham will no longer star in the Classic Stage Company production of Pierre Marivaux's The False Servant. Instead the cast will consist of Martha Plimpton, Bill Buell and Paul Lazar.

Plimpton appeared on Broadway last season in Sixteen Wounded. She earned a 2002 Obie Award and a Lucille Lortel nomination for her performance in the Atlantic Theater Company production of Hobson's Choice. Plimpton made her stage debut at age eight in the Public Theater production of The Haggadah. She also appeared off-Broadway in Suburbia, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Runaways, Boston Marriage and Flesh and Blood. Plimpton has been a Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble member since 1998. She directed Absolution and starred in productions of Hedda Gabler, The Glass Menagerie, The Playboy of the Western World and The Libertine at the regional theater. Plimpton rose to prominence in the mid-1980s after acclaimed turns in the films The River Rat and Running on Empty. Over the years, she has been a constant presence in Hollywood, appearing in over 30 films. Her big screen credits include The Goonies, Parenthood, Samantha, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Beautiful Girls, I Shot Andy Warhol, Pecker and 200 Cigarettes. She was announced to star in Woody Allen's A Second Hand Memory earlier this season, but withdrew from the production to guest-star in and write episodes of 7th Heaven. The first episode she wrote, a musical one entitled “Red Socks,” premieres Monday on the WB.

Buell has appeared on Broadway in Urinetown, 42nd Street, Titanic, Tommy, Taking Steps, Big River, Annie, Once a Catholic, The First, Welcome to the Club and The Miser. He last appeared at Classic Stage in Brian Kulick's production of The Mysteries. His other off-Broadway credits include The Fourth Sister, Eight Days Backwards, Andorra, Bad Habits, Aristocrats, Buicks, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, The Common Pursuit, Tartuffe, The Winter's Tale and Twelfth Night.

Lazar is co-artistic director with Annie-B Parson of the Big Dance Theatre Company, whose production of Antigone was performed last season at Classic Stage Company. His theatrical acting credits include Cowboys and Indians at Soho Rep and Mudd at the Signature Theater. His film credits include Streamers, Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs, Lorenzo's Oil, Philadelphia, Speechless, Henry Fool, Six Ways to Sunday, No Such Thing and The Manchurian Candidate.

The False Servant, translated by Kathleen Tolan and directed by Kulick, is scheduled to run March 30 through May 8. Lust, avarice and a healthy dose of cross-dressing are all on display in this sly 18th century romp where a young girl Plimpton dresses as a man to learn more about her husband to be. What she discovers bends everything from gender to our most cherished notions of love.