Channing, Lavin, Marvel & Keach Lead OTHER DESERT CITIES for LCT this Winter

Lincoln Center Theater, under the direction of Andre Bishop (Artistic Director) and Bernard Gersten (Executive Producer), has announced that Stockard Channing, Stacy Keach, Linda Lavin and Elizabeth Marvel will be featured in the cast of its upcoming production of OTHER DESERT CITIES, a new play by Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Joe Mantello, beginning performances Thursday, December 16 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 W. 65 Street.) Opening night is Thursday, January 13 at 6:45pm.

In Other Desert Cities, Brooke Wyeth (to be played by Elizabeth Marvel), a once promising novelist, returns home after a six year absence to celebrate Christmas in Palm Springs with her parents (Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach), former members of the Reagan inner-circle, her brother(casting for this role to be announced), and her aunt (Linda Lavin). When Brooke announces that she is about to publish a memoir focusing on an explosive chapter in the family's history, the holiday reunion is thrown into turmoil and the Wyeths are both bound together and torn apart as they struggle to come to terms with their past.

OTHER DESERT CITIES will have sets by John Lee Beatty, costumes by David Zinn, lighting by Kenneth Posner, sound by Jill BC DuBoff and original music by Justin Ellington.

Jon Robin Baitz returns to Lincoln Center Theater where his plays A Fair Country and Ten Unknowns premiered and where his play The Substance of Fire enjoyed an extended run after its original run at Playwrights Horizons. He is also the author of the plays Mizlansky/Zilinsky, The Film Society, The End of the Day, The Paris Letter, and, a new adaptation of Hedda Gabler. He wrote the screenplay for the film People I Know and the film version of The Substance of Fire. His television credits include The West Wing, Alias and Brothers & Sisters, which he created.

Joe Mantello directed the LCT productions of God's Heart and A Man of No Importance. Winner of two Tony Awards for his direction of Assassins and Take Me Out, his credits include Wicked, Pal Joey, November, The Receptionist, Three Days of Rain and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.

This season, in addition to OTHER DESERT CITIES, Lincoln Center Theater will be producing the world premieres of the new musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, based on the film by Pedro Almodóvar with book by Jeffrey Lane, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and direction by Bartlett Sher (beginning Tuesday, October 5 at the Belasco Theatre), John Guare's A Free Man of Color, directed by George C. Wolfe, (beginning Thursday, October 21) in the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the American premiere of the National Theatre of Great Britain's critically acclaimed production of War Horse (beginning Tuesday, March 15) in the Vivian Beaumont Theater and the New York premiere of A Minister's Wife, a new musical version of Shaw's Candida (beginning Thursday, April 7) in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater's programming initiative devoted to the work of new artists, will present three productions next season at The Duke on 42nd Street including the world premieres of The Coward, a new play by Nick Jones, directed by Sam Gold (November 8 - December 4) and When I Come To Die, by Nathan Louis Jackson, directed by Thomas Kail (January 31 - February 26).

Stockard Channing LCT: The Little Foxes, Hapgood, Four Baboons Adoring The Sun, Six Degrees of Separation, The House of Blue Leaves. Other NY theater: Pal Joey, The Lion in Winter, Joe Egg, The Rink. Woman in Mind, The Golden Age. Film: Six Degrees of Separation, The Business of Strangers, Where The Heart Is, Practical Magic, The First Wives Club, Smoke, Grease, The Fortune Cookie. TV includes The West Wing (2 Emmy Awards), The Matthew Shepard Story (SAG Award).

Stacy Keach LCT: debut. Broadway: Indians. Off-Broadway: Long Day's Journey Into Night, MacBird! and for the NY Shakespeare Festival: the title role in Hamlet (Obie Award), Peer Gynt, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. National Tours: Frost/Nixon, Barnum. TV: his many credits include Two and A Half Men, Prison Break, The Simpsons, Titus, Hemingway (Golden Globe Award, Emmy nomination), Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (Golden Globe Award), Princess Daisy, The Blue and The Gray. Film includes: The Boxer, W, That Championship Season.

Linda Lavin LCT: The New Century (Drama Desk Award), The Sisters Rosensweig. Broadway: Collected Stories, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, The Diary of Anne Frank The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (all Tony nominated), Hollywood Arms, Gypsy, Broadway Bound (Tony and Drama Desk Awards). TV: Alice, Barney Miller, The Sopranos, The O.C., Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Cabaret: Songs and Confessions of a One-Time Waitress.

Elizabeth Marvel LCT: Edward Albee's Seascape, An American Daughter. Broadway: Taking Sides, The Seagull. Off-Broadway: The Little Foxes, A Secondhand Memory, Hedda Gabler, Lydie Breeze, A Streetcar Named Desire (Obie Award), Therese Raquin (Obie Award). Film & TV: The Good Wife, The Dying Gaul, The District, Homicide, New York Undercover, A Will of Their Own.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.