Harriet Harris & Patrick Kerr to Lead World Premiere of Joe DiPietro's HOLLYWOOD at La Jolla Playhouse

La Jolla Playhouse has announced the cast and creative team for its world-premiere production of Hollywood, by Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro (Memphis, Chasing the Song) directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley.

Due to high demand for subscriptions, the Playhouse has also announced a week-long extension for its upcoming musical Freaky Friday, now running January 28 - March 12, 2017, as well as for Hollywood, now running May 10 - June 12 in the Mandell Weiss Theatre (press opening: Wednesday, May 18 at 7:30pm). Individual tickets for Hollywood and The Last Tiger in Haiti are now on sale at LaJollaPlayhouse.org or (858) 550-1010.

Tickets for the Playhouse's 2016/2017 season productions of Junk: The Golden Age of Debt, Tiger Style!, Miss You Like Hell and Freaky Friday are currently only available through a subscription purchase.

In 1922, famed director William Desmond Taylor is found murdered in his home. The celebrity suspects mount as the headlines explode with lurid reports of love triangles, hush money and deception. Enter Will Hays, Hollywood's newly-appointed moral watchdog, determined to silence the scandal and purify this increasingly corrupt city. Based on the true story of Taylor's unsolved murder, Hollywood is a world-premiere noir thriller from Tony Award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro.

"Audiences are in for a fantastic night at the Playhouse with Joe's smart and sexy new play. Though set in the Golden Age of movies, Hollywood depicts a time and territory that is uncannily like our own, both politically and culturally," said Ashley. "It is also extremely gratifying to be in the position of having to extend productions before the season has even begun, due to overwhelming subscription demand - once again demonstrating San Diego's voracious appetite for new work."

The cast features Playhouse veterans Patrick Kerr (His Girl Friday) as "Will Hays," Tony Award winner Harriet Harris (Unusual Acts of Devotion, Cry-Baby, Thoroughly Modern Millie) as "Charlotte Shelby," Jeff Marlow (Sideways, Glengarry Glen Ross) as "D.A. Thomas Woolvine," and Lee Sellars (Ether Dome) as "Charles Eyton," along with Matthew Amendt as "Jimmy Dale," Carolyn Braver as "Mary Miles Minter," Scott Drummond as "William Desmond Taylor" and Kate Rockwell as "Mabel Normand," plus local actors Jacob Bruce, who also serves as a Playhouse scene shop carpenter, as "Danny" and Shaun T. Evans as "Henry Peavey," and UC San Diego M.F.A. students Katherine Ko, Martin Meccouri, Caroline Siewert and Terrance White.

The creative team includes Wilson Chin, Scenic Designer; Paul Tazewell (Chasing the Song, His Girl Friday, Memphis, et al), Costume Designer; Howell Binkley (Come From Away, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Memphis, et al), Lighting Designer; Jill BC DuBoff (Creditors), Sound Designer; Tara Knight (A Dram of Drummhicit), Projection Designer; Wayne Barker, Composer; Shirley Fishman, Dramaturg; Telsey + Company, Casting and Arturo Porazzi, Stage Manager.

Joe DiPietro was most recently at the Playhouse in 2014 with the Page To Stage musical Chasing the Song. He has won two Tony Awards for co-writing Memphis, which won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. He won the Drama Desk Award and was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Book for his Gershwin show, Nice Work If You Can Get It, starring Matthew Broderick. Other works include the award-winning The Toxic Avenger (with David Bryan) and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, the longest-running musical revue in off-Broadway history. His new comedy, Clever Little Lies, starring Marlo Thomas, is currently running off-Broadway, and his new historical drama, The Second Mrs. Wilson, just finished a run at New Jersey's George Street Playhouse.

Christopher Ashley has served as La Jolla Playhouse's Artistic Director since October, 2007. During his tenure, he has helmed the Playhouse's acclaimed productions of Come From Away, The Darrell Hammond Project, Chasing the Song, His Girl Friday, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Dram of Drummhicit, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Restoration and the acclaimed musicals Xanadu and Memphis, which won four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical. He also spearheaded the Playhouse's Without Walls (WoW) series and the Resident Theatre program. Prior to joining the Playhouse, he directed the Broadway productions of Xanadu (Drama Desk nomination), All Shook Up and The Rocky Horror Show (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations), as well as the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration productions of Sweeney Todd and Merrily We Roll Along. Other New York credits include: Blown Sideways Through Life, Jeffrey (Lucille Lortel and Obie Awards), The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla, Regrets Only, Wonder of the World, Communicating Doors, Bunny Bunny, The Night Hank Williams Died and Fires in the Mirror (Lucille Lortel Award), among others. Mr. Ashley also directed the feature films Jeffrey and Lucky Stiff, as well as the American Playhouse production of Blown Sideways Through Life for PBS. Mr. Ashley is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award, the Drama League Director Fellowship and an NEA/TCG Director Fellowship.

The Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is internationally-renowned for creating some of the most exciting and adventurous work in American theatre, through its new play development initiatives, its innovative Without Walls series, artist residencies and commissions, including BD Wong, Daniel Beatty and Kirsten Greenidge. Currently led by Artistic Director Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg, the Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and reborn in 1983 under the artistic leadership of Des McAnuff. La Jolla Playhouse has had 25 productions transfer to Broadway, garnering 35 Tony Awards, among them Jersey Boys, Memphis, The Who's Tommy, Big River, as well as Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays and the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, both fostered as part of the Playhouse's Page To Stage Program. Visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org.