Marsha Mason Joins Cast of I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER

Keen Company in association with Wiltsie Bridge Productions announced today that Academy Award-nominee Marsha Mason will join previously announced Keir Dullea and Matt Servitto in the upcoming revival of I Never Sang for My Father by Robert Anderson at Theatre Row / The Clurman Theater from March 23 - May 1. Directed by Jonathan Silverstein, I Never Sang for My Father marks the second Anderson play presented by Keen, following the success of its 2007 critically acclaimed production of Tea & Sympathy. Tickets for I Never Sang for My Father are available through TicketCentral.com or by calling (212) 279-4200. The official opening is set for Sunday, April 4.

I Never Sang for My Father explores one son's struggle to balance his own happiness with the needs of his aging parents, and his yearning for a closer relationship with the father he cannot change. Gene Garrsion (Servitto) is a grown man with a successful career, but when his parents (Dullea and Mason) arrive for a visit, he finds himself in that awkward position of feeling like a child again. When tragedy strikes, Gene is forced to examine his responsibility to himself and his family in new ways. A complex portrait of a family in flux, this moving work by Robert Anderson explores what it means to be a man and a son at the same time. This production will also feature Rose Courtney and Melissa Miller.

The set design for I Never Sang for My Father is by Bill Clarke, costume design is by Theresa Squire, lighting design is by Josh Bradford and sound design is by Will Pickens.

Four-time Academy Award-nominee Marsha Mason recently appeared on Broadway in Impressionism and Steel Magnolias, and Off-Broadway in A Feminine Ending at Playwrights Horizons. Keir Dullea is perhaps best known for the character of astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001, A Space Odyssey and in the 1984 sequel 2010, The Year We Make Contact. Matt Servitto played FBI Agent Dwight Harris on HBO's "The Sopranos," a role for which he won SAG Awards in 1999 and 2007.

Playwright, screenwriter and theater producer Robert Anderson is best remembered as the author of Tea and Sympathy. The play made its Broadway debut in 1953 and was made into an MGM film in 1956; both starred Deborah Kerr and John Kerr. You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, a collection of four one-act comedies, opened in New York in 1967 and ran for more than 700 performances. His other successful Broadway plays were Silent Night, Lonely Night (1959) and I Never Sang for My Father (1968). He wrote the screenplays for Until They Sail (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), and The Sand Pebbles (1966). He was Oscar-nominated for the The Nun's Story as well as his 1970 screen adaptation of I Never Sang for My Father. He also authored many television scripts, including the TV play The Last Act Is a Solo (1991), and the novels After (1973) and Getting Up and Going Home (1978). Anderson was married to Phyllis Stohl from 1940 until her death in 1956 and to actress Teresa Wright from 1959 until their divorce in 1978. He died of pneumonia on February 9, 2009 at his home in Manhattan.

Jonathan Silverstein is the resident director of Keen Company. His Off Broadway credits include: The Temperamentals (GLAAD nomination), The Dining Room (Drama Desk nomination: Outstanding Director; Drama Desk Award: Outstanding Ensemble), Tea and Sympathy and The Hasty Heart (Keen Company); Red Herring (NYC Fringe; Outstanding Direction award), Blueprint (Summer Play Festival), Indiscretions (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble); The Dadshuttle (Drama League); The Rats Are Getting Bigger (NYC Fringe/ Public Theatre);Greater Messapia (Queens Theatre in the Park) and The Train Play (Clubbed Thumb). Regional: The Fantasticks (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); Merton of the Movies and Marry Me a Little (Dorset Theatre Festival) The Triumph of Love (Cleveland Play House); Urinetown and Tick, Tick, BOOM! (Cape Rep Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing and Cymbeline (The Theatre at Monmouth) and The Chairs (Sledgehammer). One of 2009's Out 100, Out Magazine's annual list of the most outstanding and inspiring men and women of the year.

Keen Company (Carl Forsman, Artistic Director / Wayne Kelton, Executive Director) produces sincere plays with the belief that theater is at its most powerful when texts and productions are generous in spirit and provoke identification. Inspired by the works of early 20th Century American Playwrights, Keen Company demonstrates that an earnest intent can still be sophisticated and is unafraid of emotional candor, vulnerability and optimism. Keen Company seeks to create a culture of artists, technicians, administrators and audiences who share a desire to invigorate the theater with productions that connect audiences through humor, heart and hope.

I Never Sang for My Father by Robert Anderson, presented by the Keen Company in association with Wiltsie Bridge Productions, will run March 23 - May 1 at Theatre Row / The Clurman Theater (410 West 42nd Street). Tickets are $51.25 (inclusive of a $1.25 Theatre Row facility fee) and are available through TicketCentral.com or by calling (212) 279-4200. For more info, visit www.KeenCompany.org.

Photo credit: Walter McBride

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