Carradine and Sands to Play Bush and Blair in LA Premiere of Stuff Happens

Keith Carradine will play President Bush and Julian Sands will be Prime Minister Tony Blair in the American premiere of David Hare's Stuff Happens. The show, directed by Gordon Davidson, will begin performances at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles on May 25 and is scheduled to run through July 17, 2005.

Carradine was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in The Will Rogers Follies. His other Broadway credits include Hair and Foxfire. His film credits include McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Hex, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Welcome to L.A., The Duellists, Pretty Baby, The Long Riders, Trouble in Mind, Maria's Lovers, Backfire, The Moderns, Street of No Return, Andre, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Wild Bill, A Thousand Acres and The Californians. He also received an Oscar for Nashville's "I'm Easy." Carradine was recently seen on the small screen in the series Complete Savages.

Born in England, Sands' first big break came when he landed a role in the 1983 television movie A Married Man alongside Anthony Hopkins. The following year he garnered attention for his performance in the film The Killing Fields. His subsequent film credits include A Room with a View, Gothic, Vibes, Wherever You Are, Arachnophobia, Naked Lunch, Leaving Las Vegas, One Night Stand, The Loss of Sexual Innocence, Timcode and Her Name is Carla.

The American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's famous response to the looting of Baghdad at a press conference on April 11, 2003 provides the title for this new play, which was specially written for the National Theatre in London where it premiered last year. From events that have dominated international headlines for the last two years, Hare has fashioned both a historical narrative and a human drama about the frustrations of power and the limits of diplomacy.

In addition to Carradine and Sands, the Los Angeles company will include Tyrees Allen, Henry Brown, Jane Carr, Mitchell Edmonds, Kip Gilman, James Handy, Jay Harik, John Michael Higgins, Brian George, James Gleason, Francis Guinan, Anna Khaja, John Rafter Lee, Dakin Matthews, Paul Messinger, Alan Oppenheimer, Stephen Spinella, Lorraine Toussaint, Inger Tudor and John Vickery.

Stuff Happens is scheduled to officially open June 5.