So Help Me God, starring Kristen Johnston, will now be directed by Jonathan Bank

So Help Me God, starring Kristen Johnston, will now be directed by Jonathan Bank The Mint Theater Company company's second offering of the season, So Help Me God! by Maurine Dallas Watkins (the author of Chicago, the play upon which the musical is based), will be directed by Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank, taking over for the previously announced Martin Platt, who has left the production for personal reasons. The production will now open at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on 7 Dec 2009, following previews from 18 Nov and runs through to 20 Dec 2009. Kristen Johnston, two-time Emmy Award winner for her performance in '3rd Rock from the Sun,' will perform the role of 'Lily,' a fabulous dramatic diva who must fend off a challenge from her ambitious but naïve understudy, played by Anna Chlumsky (My Girl films). The cast includes, in addition toJohnston and Chlumsky, Brad Bellamy, Catherine Curtin, Amy Fitts, Jeremy Lawrence, Ned Noyes, Kevin O'Donnell, John G. Preston, Allen Lewis Rickman, Kraig Swartz, Peter Van Wagner, Matthew Waterson, Margot White and John Windsor-Cunningham. The creative team features Scenic design by Bill Clarke, with costume design by Clint Ramos, lighting design by Robert Wierzel and sound design by Jane Shaw. This past June, the Mint presented a one-night reading of 'So Help Me God!' starring two-time Emmy Award-winner Kristen Johnston, which led to the decision to give the comedy a full production. Johnston will reprise her role as 'Lily Darnley,' "the star to whom all wagons are hitched," as the author describes her. For this one production the Mint Theater Company will venture out of the West 43rd St. space that has been its home for more than 15 years, to the Lucille Lortel Theater in Greenwich Village, which has a larger stage and twice the seating capacity. Bank says, "With its rich history and wonderful theatrical atmosphere the Lucille Lortel Theater is the perfect setting for this play about a classic (not classy) Broadway diva." Mint Theater Company, "that truffle hound of half-buried treasures from the past" (Village Voice), has a celebrated reputation for re-discovering worthy but neglected gems. The company was awarded an Obie for "combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition," and was presented a special Drama Desk Award for "Unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit."