Playwrights Horizons Announces 2005-2006 Mainstage Season

Playwrights Horizons has announced three plays for its 2005-2006 Mainstage season. James Lapine's Fran's Bed, Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon and Keith Bunin's The Busy World is Hushed will all be on the roster.

We previously reported Playwrights Horizons was expected to present Fran's Bed. The show, which Lapine will also direct, centers on the title character, who is fighting for her life. Incapacitated, her fate in the hands of caretakers both calculating and sympathetic, Fran guides the audience into the past, casting a bemused eye over the events that brought her to this place, this bed. The show has starred Mia Farrow in all previous phases of its development. It is set to begin performances on September 2.

Miss Witherspoon, directed by Emily Mann, is a co-production with The McCarter Theatre where it is running September 9 through October 16 beginning Gotham performances on November 11. The play centers on Veronica a lapsed Catholic who is oddly spending eternity in Purgatory with a Hindu spirit guide who calls her Miss Witherspoon. Veronica is also continually being sent back to earth to live lives she doesn't particularly want to lead. Miss Witherspoon is a black comedy about reincarnation and world events.

The Busy World is Hushed focuses on Hannah, a minister and bible scholar, for whom faith comes from embracing the pain of past tragedy, and her estranged son Thomas, for whom tragedy has destroyed all hope of faith. But when a brilliant, grieving young writer arrives to assist Hannah with her latest publication, she sees an opportunity for redemption and reconciliation. This world premiere does not have a set director as of now.

Playwrights is still in the midst of its 2004-2005 season. Its next Mainstage production, Kathleen Tolan's Memory House, will begin performances on April 22 and Julia Cho's BFE is set to start at the smaller Peter Jay Sharp Theater on May 19.