Larry Pine to Lead A PUBLIC READING OF AN UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY ABOUT THE DEATH OF WALT DISNEY at Soho Rep, 4/30-5/26

Soho Rep has announced that the celebrated stage and screen actor Larry Pine will star in the world premiere production of Lucas Hnath's adrenaline-charged odyssey A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney. Directed by Soho Rep Artistic Director Sarah Benson, Pine will play the title character - the man who forever changed the American Dream. Hnath's fictional play centers around the reading of a screenplay Walt Disney has written about his last days on earth. The script is about a city he is going to build that is going to change the world; about his brother; about everyone who loves Disney and how sad they are going to be when he is gone.

Produced in association with John Adrian Selzer, the show, which concludes Soho Rep's highly successful 2012-13 season, will run April 30 - May 26 at Soho Rep (46 Walker Street). Performances will take place Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 P.M., plus Saturdays at 3:00 P.M. Tickets, $30-40, are on sale now at www.sohorep.org or 212.352.3101. Tickets for select Sunday performances (May 12 and 19) will be 99¢, available first come, first served at the box office.

Larry Pine has played a wide variety of roles on Broadway and off, in films and on television, His Broadway credits include The Royal Family, The Seagull, End of the World, Roy Cohn in Angels in America, Bus Stop. Off-Broadway credits include Top Secret, Beast, Secret Order, The Shanghai Gesture, Stuff Happens, Enemy of the People, The Women of Lockerbie, Saved or Destroyed, The Designated Mourner, The Chemistry of Change, Mizlansky/Zilinsky, Uncle Vanya, The Disputation. His film credits include Moonrise Kingdom, Arbitrage, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Outsourced, TransBeMan, Sweet Flame, Empire Falls, Door in the Floor, Particles of Truth, Maid in Manhattan, The Royal Tenenbaums, A Foreign Affair, The Shipping News, Melinda and Melinda, Small Time Crooks, Celebrity, Sunday (Sundance Grand Prize winner), Vanya on 42nd Street, Dead Man Walking and many others. On television, he has appeared in "House of Cards," "Homeland," "Blue Bloods," "The Good Wife," and "Person of Interest."

Additional casting is to be announced.

The creative team for A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney is Mimi Lien (set), Kaye Voyce (costume), Matt Frey (lighting), Matt Tierney (sound) and Jon Knust (props), with Annie-B Parson (movement) and Steve Cuiffo (special effects).

A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney was first presented as a reading at the 2012 PRELUDE Festival. The production follows the critically acclaimed premiere of Hnath's play Isaac's Eye, which opened at Ensemble Studio Theater last month.

Lucas Hnath's recent plays include A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney, Red Speedo, Hillary and Clinton, Sake Tasting with a Séance to Follow, The Courtship of Anna Nicole Smith, Odile's Ordeal, Tonguetied, and Three Attempts at Corrective Eye Surgery. He has been a resident playwright at New Dramatists since 2011. Most recently his play Death Tax premiered in the 36th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. Hnath is a two-time winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for his feature-length screenplays, The Painting, the Machine, and the Apple and Still Life. He is also a recipient of an EST/Sloan Project commission for Isaac's Eye. Most recently, his play Death Tax premiered in the 36th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2012. In addition, he is currently working on two commissions for Actors Theatre of Louisville, including a collaboration with Rinne Groff and Anne Washburn called Sleep Rock Thy Brain, which will premiere at the Humana Festival in 2013.

More Articles by This Author...