THE OFFICE's Jenna Fischer to Make Stage Debut Off-Broadway in Neil LaBute's REASONS TO BE HAPPY, Beginning 5/16

According to Deadline.com, The Office's Jenna Fischer will be starring in Neil LaBute's Reasons to be Happy off-Broadway at MCC Theater's Lucille Lortel Theater, beginning May 16, the same night The Office finale will air on NBC. The show will open on June 11, 2013. This will be Fischer's stage debut.

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LaBute's new play begins three years after a contentious break-up, with Steph (played by Fischer) and Greg wondering if they can make a fresh go of it. Trouble is, she's married to someone else and he's just embarked on a relationship with Steph's best friend, Carly, a single mom whose jealous ex-husband, Kent, has trouble articulating his feelings - navigating the rocky landscape of conflicting agendas and exploding emotions isn't going to be easy for any of them. Reasons to be Happy is a funny, surprising, and poignant new play about the choices and sacrifices we are willing to make in the pursuit of that often elusive ideal: happiness.

MCC Theater previously announced that LaBute will direct the world premiere of his new play, which runs through June 23, 2013. Reasons to be Happy is a companion piece to LaBute's critically-acclaimed award-winning play, Reasons to Be Pretty, first produced at MCC Theater in 2008 before moving to Broadway where it was nominated for three 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Play.

Prolific playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute is the author of the renowned plays The Shape of Things, Fat Pig, and Reasons to Be Pretty, the latter of which served as his Broadway debut in 2009, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. On stage, he previously directed his plays The Mercy Seat, Wrecks, and The Shape of Things. For film, LaBute wrote and directed the Cannes Palme d'Or finalist Nurse Betty, Your Friends & Neighbors, The Shape of Things, and In the Company of Men, for which he won the Independent Spirit Award and New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best First Feature. He also directed the hit dark comedy Death at a Funeral. LaBute is currently the Playwright-in-Residence at MCC Theater, with whom he has had a longstanding and fruitful relationship dating back to 2002.

Fischer has starred as 'Pam' on NBC's The Office since 2005. She will next be seen in the movie You Are Here alongside Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler.

Photo Credit: RD / Orchon / Retna Digital