Playwright Horizon: additional casting for their 2006 - 2007 season

Playwrights Horizons have announced additional casting for their 2006 - 2007 Season.

Peter Weller will star as architectural legend Frank Lloyd Wright in the New York premiere of Frank's Home, a new play by Richard Nelson. In addition, Broadway veteran Harris Yulin will play Wright�s mentor, architect Louis Sullivan.

Peter Weller is perhaps best known for starring in the first two Robocop films, and this year joined the cast of the hit series '24' as terrorist collaborator Christopher Henderson. He last appeared on the Broadway Stage in 1975 when he played Alan Seymour in William Inge's comedy 'Summer Brave'. His other Broadway credits are: Sticks and Bones, The Merchant of Venice and Full Circle.

Harris Yulin's TV credits include playing Aamin Marritza in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Quentin Travers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He has previously appeared at Playwrights Horizons in both Fran�s Bed and Arts & Leisure. He last appeared on the Broadway stage in 2002 when he played Judge Brack in Hedda Gabler. His other Broadway credits include The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes and Watch on the Rhine.

Kristine Nielsen joins the previously-announced Sigourney Weaver in the world premiere cast of Crazy Mary, a new play by A.R. Gurney. Ms. Nielsen appeared at Playwrights Horizons last season, starring as Miss Witherspoon in Christopher Durang�s play Miss Witherspoon. As in Miss Witherspoon, she will once again be taking on a title role, this time playing Mary, cousin to Ms. Weaver�s Lydia.

Ms. Nielsen has also appeared at Playwrights Horizons in Betty�s Summer Vacation, for which she won an Obie Award and received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations. Ms. Nielsen last appeared on the Broadway stage in 2002 when she played Eunice Hubbell in Hedda Gabler. Her other Broadway credits include The Green Bird, Jackie: An American Life and The Iceman Cometh.

Reg E. Cathey and Andr� Holland will headline the New York premiere of the two-actor tour-de-force Blue Door, a new play by Tanya Barfield.

Mr. Cathey made his Broadway debut in 2000 when he played Brighella in Julie Taymor�s The Green Bird. Off-Broadway work includes White Chocolate, Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Macbeth, Crowbar and Bad Penny. Notable television credits include �The Wire,� Commander Morag on �Star Trek: The Next Generation� and Warden Querns on �Oz.�

Mr. Holland is a 2006 graduate of the NYU Graduate Acting Program who has appeared in the Ensemble for Shakespeare in the Park productions of As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing.

Additonal casting to be announced.

Playwright Horizons 2006 - 2007 season :

• The New York Premiere of The Pain and the Itch
  Playwright: Bruce Norris
  Director: Anna D. Shapiro
  Cast: Mia Barron, Aya Cash, Peter Jay Fernandez, Jayne Houdyshell, Reg Rogers and Christopher Evan Welch. Child actors Ada-Marie L. Gutierrez and Nora Markus will rotate in the role of Kayla.
  Synopsis: With a young daughter in serious need of attention and a ravenous creature possibly prowling the upstairs bedrooms, what begins as an average Thanksgiving for one privileged family unravels into an expos� of disastrous choices and less-than-altruistic motives.
  Venue: Playwright Horizons' Main Stage
  Dates: 1 Sep - 8 Oct 2006 (Opens 21 Sep 2006)
  
• The New York premiere of Blue Door
  Playwright: Tanya Barfield
  Director: Leigh Silverman
  Cast: Reg E. Cathey and Andr� Holland
  Synopsis: When a prominent African-American mathematician in crisis begins to lose his grip on reality, the ghosts of ancestors past shatter the silence of an insomnia-filled night.
  Venue: Playwright Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater
  Dates: 28 Sep - 29 Oct 2006 (Opens 10 Oct 2006)
  
• The New York premiere of Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky
  Book and Lyrics: David Cale
  Music: Jonathan Kreisberg and David Cale
  Director: Joe Calarco
  Cast: tba
  Synopsis: Burnt out, living out of his Studebaker, former country-western star Floyd Duffner�s best days seem to be behind him. But when a 20 year-old feral beauty with an electrifying voice enters the picture, an unlikely friendship and musical partnership begins to blossom.
  Venue: Playwright Horizons' Main Stage
  Dates: 10 Nov - 17 Dec 2006
  
• The New York Premiere of Frank's Home
  Playwright: Richard Nelson
  Director: Robert Falls
  Cast: Peter Weller (Frank Lloyd Wright), Harris Yulin (Louis Sullivan)
  Synopsis: It is summer, 1923, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright has recently left Chicago for California, determined to embrace Hollywood's youthful zest and mend broken relationships with his adult children. Having recently completed his latest 'wonder of the world' � Tokyo's Imperial Hotel � Wright is poised to settle down and embrace his new home. But his splintered family still holds deep-seated resentments.
  Produced in association with The Goodman Theatre, where it will premiere this Fall.
  Venue: Playwright Horizons' Main Stage
  Dates: 12 Jan - 18 Feb 2007
  
• The World Premiere of Essential Self-Defence
  Playwright: Adam Rapp
  Director: Carolyn Cantor
  Cast: tba
  Synopsis: A disgruntled misfit takes a job as an attack dummy in a women�s self-defense class and finds himself mysteriously drawn to the repressed bookworm who�s beating on him. But all�s not well on the mean Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend and a motley assortment of poets, butchers and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.
  Venue: Playwright Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater
  Dates: 15 Mar - 15 Apr 2007
  
• The World Premiere of Crazy Mary
  Playwright: A.R. Gurney
  Director: Jim Simpson
  Cast: Sigourney Weaver (Lydia), Kristine Nielsen (Mary)
  Synopsis: In an attempt to account for the family inheritance, the scion of a wealthy Buffalo, NY clan and her willful, college-aged son visit their long lost cousin Mary. The catch: Mary is living in an asylum, and has barely spoken in years, forcing mother and son to employ radical ends to get through.
  Venue: Playwright Horizons' Main Stage
  Dates: 11 May - 17 Jun 2007

Harris Yulin