Van Dyck And Walker Join Cast Of 'THE THIRD STORY'

MCC THEATER (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, Artistic Directors; William Cantler, Associate Artistic Director; Blake West, Executive Director) today announced that Jennifer Van Dyck, Scott Parkinson, Sarah Rafferty and Jonathan Walker will complete the cast for their production of Charles Busch's The Third Story, directed by Carl Andress. As previously announced Kathleen Turner and Mr. Busch will appear as dueling divas.

This production marks the New York Premiere of the show following a recently completed run at La Jolla Playhouse. Performances will begin at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, NYC) on January 14 and continue through February 28, 2009. Opening night is set for Monday, February 2 at 7:00 p.m.

A mother and son screenwriting team hunker down in Omaha after fleeing Commie-obsessed 1940's Hollywood. A romantically-inclined but socially-inept princess makes a deal with an ancient witch. And tommy guns meet test tubes as a way-too-well-dressed first lady of the mob forms a desperate alliance with a cloning scientist whose experiments have had, um, less-than-consistent results. Gangster flicks, fairy tales and B-movie sci-fi collide in this epic comic fable from the sick and silly imagination of Charles Busch.

Flexible Premium 2 play subscriptions are now available for $99, which means that patrons may purchase it and use both tickets for The Third Story or Coraline, a new musical with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields and book by David Greenspan.

MCC Theater is one of New York City's leading Off Broadway theater companies, committed to presenting New York and world premieres each season. When MCC Theater was founded in 1986, its mission was simple: to bring new theatrical voices to theater-going audiences. MCC Theater continues to accomplish this yearly through presentation of its mainstage works; its Literary Program, which actively seeks and develops new and emerging writers and its Education & Outreach Program, allowing more than 1,200 students yearly to experience theater, increase literacy and discover their own voices in the arts. Notable MCC Theater highlights include: their 2008 Broadway-bound production of Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty (to open at a theatre to be announced in February, 2009), the 2004 Tony-winning production of Bryony Lavery's Frozen; Neil LaBute's Fat Pig; Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living; Marsha Norman's Trudy Blue; Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit; Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone and Alan Bowne's Beirut. Over the years, the dedication to the work of new and emerging artists has earned MCC Theater a variety of awards. For a complete production history, visit www.mcctheater.org.

Jennifer Van Dyck. Broadway: Hedda Gabler, Dancing at Lughnasa, Two Shakespearean Actors, The Secret Rapture. Off Broadway: Suzan Lori-Parks' 365Days/365 Plays (Barrow St./The Public), Orson's Shadow (Barrow St.), The Breadwinner, The Second Man (Keen Company), Hesh (Naked Angels), A Cheever Evening, Man in His Underwear, Gus and Al (all at Playwrights Horizons), Earth and Sky (Second Stage). New plays by Bathsheba Doran, Karen Zacarias, Keith Bunin, Ellen McLaughlin, Catherine Filloux, Douglas Post. Regional: La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, Huntington, Trinity Rep, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Berkshire Theatre Festival. TV: "Fringe," "New Amsterdam," "Law & Order" (numerous guest appearances on all versions), "Ed," "The Education of Max Bickford," "Spin City." Film: Michael Clayton, Across the Universe, Stealing Martin Lane, Series 7, States of Control, Bullets Over Broadway.

Scott Parkinson originated the role of Zygote in the world premiere of The Third Story at La Jolla Playhouse. Broadway: The Coast of Utopia (Lincoln Center). Off Broadway: Tynan in Orson's Shadow (Barrow Street), Rose Rage (Drama League nomination, Ensemble/Chicago Shakespeare at the Duke Theatre); Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment (Writers' Theatre at 59E59). Regional: Treplev in Seagull, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (Old Globe); Cassius in Julius Caesar, Antony & Cleopatra, and The Persians (Shakespeare Theatre); The School For Scandal (Mark Taper Forum); Theophilus North (Dorset Theatre Festival) and Prince Hal in Henry IV (Pennsylvania Shakespeare). Chicago: Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Court Theatre, Writers' Theatre and Northlight Theatre. Other roles include: Hamlet, Richard II, Richard III, Iago, the Fool, Puck, Octavius Caesar, Tom in The Glass Menagerie, Marchbanks in Candida, Dubedat in The Doctor's Dilemma, Prior in Angels in America, Nathan in Guys and Dolls. Joseph Jefferson Award, Rose Rage. He is a featured interview in the book North American Players of Shakespeare, published by University of Delaware Press.

Sarah Rafferty. In New York, Sarah has appeared Off Broadway in Gemini at Second Stage and You Never Can Tell at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Regionally she has appeared in numerous productions at South Coast Repertory Theatre, including the premiere of Horton Foote's Getting Frankie Married-and Afterwards. Other credits include productions at The Old Globe, The Huntington Theatre Company, New York Stage and Film, Yale Rep, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Barrington Stage, The Philadelphia Theatre Co and Shakespeare and Company where she played Rosalind in As You Like It. She has also performed several radio plays produced by L.A. Theatre Works for NPR's "The Play's the Thing". Her television credits include the movie ‘What if God where the Sun?" opposite Gena Rowlands; "Samantha Who?"; "Without a Trace"; "Six Feet Under";

"CSI" and "CSI-Miami"; "Pepper Dennis" and "Good Morning, Miami". She recently finished shooting the film Four Single Fathers produced by Gabriele Muccino. Sarah is a graduate of The Yale School of Drama.

Jonathan Walker. Broadway: 20th Century, After the Fall. Off Broadway: Deathbed (Mcginn/Cazale); Strangers Knocking (New Group); Angelique (MCC); Dinner With Friends (Variety Arts); When She Danced, An Imaginary Life, Waterchildren and Fran's Bed (Playwright's Horizons); Everybody's Ruby, Found A Peanut (The Public Theater) The American Plan (MTC); Soldier's Play (Theater Four); The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria (La Mama); How the Rent Gets Paid (Wooster Group). Regional: The Third Story (La Jolla); Hamlet, King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing, (Old Globe); Baltimore Waltz (Yale Repertory); Long Days Journey Into Night(Huntington Theater); Not Suitable For Children (The McCarter); Sons of Ulster (Williamstown Theater Festival); Cheever Evening(Westport Playhouse). Film: Michael Clayton, Malevolence 2, People I Know, Heights, Far From Heaven. TV: "Eli Stone," "6 Degrees," "3 Lbs," "Sex and the City," "Ed," "Chapelle's Show," "Cupid and Cate," "Spin City," "American Dreams," lots of "Law and Order."

Kathleen Turner has garnered critical acclaim for her performances in a wide variety of film and theatre.

This year, she directed the Roundabout Theatre Company production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Crimes of the Heart. In 2007, she received London's coveted Evening Standard and London Critics Circle awards as well as a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for the West End production of Edward Albee's modern classic Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, having been nominated for the 2005 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play during the acclaimed run on Broadway. In the fall of 2000, Turner broke box-office records starring in the stage version of the classic film The Graduate in London's West End, playing the role of Mrs. Robinson. In 2002 she took The Graduate to Broadway. In 1998, she made her British stage debut at the Chichester Festival Theater, which was founded by Sir Laurence Olivier. Recently, Kathleen worked with Michael Lessac who directed Turner as Tallulah Bankhead in Sandra Ryan Heyward's one-woman show Tallulah -- which she toured in across the U.S. Turner starred on Broadway in Jean Cocteau's Indiscretions. Other stage works include her portrayal of Maggie the Cat, in the 1989 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the Broadway's production of Gemini, and Camille at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. Turner also starred in Travesties, The Seagull, Toyer and A Midsumer's Night Dream at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C.

In film, Turner was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in Body Heat. She won the Golden Globe Award for her performances in Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor. Her work in Peggy Sue Got Married brought her both an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe nomination and she earned yet another Golden Globe nomination for War of the Roses. In 2008, Turner wrote of her many accomplishments and life experiences in her autobiography titled Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on my Life, Love, and Leading Roles. The book, co-authored by Gloria Feldt, secured a position on the New York Times Best-Seller List. Turner's extensive film credits include the critically acclaimed The Virgin Suicides directed by Sofia Coppola, The Man with Two Brains with Steve Martin; Jewel of the Nile with Michael Douglas; Crimes of Passion; The Accidental Tourist; V.I. Warshawski; John Water's Serial Mom; Naked in New York and Moonlight and Valentino. And it is impossible to forget Turner's standout performance as the sultry voice of Jessica Rabbit in Who framed Roger Rabbit?

In addition to her film and stage work Kathleen is an ambassador for Planned Parenthood and also sits on the boards for City Meals on Wheels, People for the American Way, Childhelp and the Ms. Foundation. She speaks across the country on behalf of these various causes.

She is a Missouri native, but was raised in Canada, Cuba and England where her father was a diplomat.

Charles Busch is the author and star of such plays as The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, which ran five years and is one of the longest running plays in Off Broadway history. His play The Tale of the Allergist's Wife ran for 777 performances on Broadway and received a Tony nomination for Best Play. He wrote and starred in the film versions of his plays Psycho Beach Party and Die Mommie Die, the latter of which won him the Best Performance Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, Mr. Busch received a special Drama Desk Award for career achievement as both performer and playwright. Mr. Busch made his directorial debut with the film A Very Serious Person, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. He is also the subject of the documentary film The Lady in Question is Charles Busch.