Keen Company will kick off its 2007-08 season with a 25th anniversary production of A.R. Gurney's The Dining Room, directed by Jonathan Silverstein. The play will begin previews on September 11 at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row and open on September 20, running through October 14. Ann McDonough, an original cast member in Playwrights Horizons' acclaimed 1982 production, has signed on to be part of the cast, which includes six actors playing more than 50 roles. Additional casting will be announced shortly.
The Dining Room was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and ran for more than 18 months off-Broadway in a production that starred William H. Macy, John Shea, Pippa Pearthree, Lois de Banzie, Remak Ramsay and McDonough. The play examines 20th-century family life in a series of scenes dissecting birthday parties, holidays, breakfasts, affairs and every imaginable relationship. Spanning the century and a single day at the same time, The Dining Room is Gurney's humorous and moving evocation of family life, past and present.
Keen Company's 2007-08 season will continues with two world-premiere productions: The Maddening Truth by David Hay, about Ernest Hemingway's third wife, renowned war journalist Martha Gellhorn, which begins previews on January 15, 2008, and The Conscientious Objector by Michael Roland Murphy, a docudrama exploring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s role in the anti-war movement, which begins previews on February 26.
