Keen Company Announces Keith Nobbs, Kellie Overbey for LEMON SKY

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company (Carl Forsman, Artistic Director/Damon Chua, Executive Director) today announced that their Keith Nobbs, Kellie Overbey and Kevin Kilner would lead the cast of Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky, the 1970 drama by the Pulitzer-winning writer of Talley's Folly, Burn This, and Fifth Of July. Drama Desk nominee Jonathan Silverstein (The Temperamentals, The Dining Room) directs.

Keith Nobbs most recently starred opposite Dan Lauria in Lombardi, as the fictional Look Magazine reporter Michael McCormack. He made his Broadway debut in The Lion in Winter starring Laurence Fishburne and Stockard Channing, directed by Michael Mayer. Other NY stage credits include Stupid Kids; Dog Sees God; Hope Is the Thing With Feathers (Drama Dept), Free to Be You and Me (Drama Dept), Four (Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk nomination), The Hasty Heart (Keen Company), Triple Happiness (Second Stage),Fuddy Meers (MTC), Dublin Carol and the world premiere of David Mamet's Romance (Atlantic). TV credits include HBO's "The Pacific," "The Black Donnellys," "In Treatment," "The Sopranos," "In Plain Sight" and "Fringe." Film credits include Double Whammy, Phone Booth, 25th Hour and the independent films The Briefcase, Weakness andPremium.

Kellie Overbey appeared on Broadway in The Coast of Utopia, Twentieth Century, QED, Judgment at Nuremberg, Present Laughter, and Buried Child; Off-Broadway credits include Betty's Summer Vacation and The Savannah Disputation (Playwrights Horizons), Good Boys and True(Second Stage), Hamlet (CSC), The Debutante Ball, Gone Home and Comic Potential (Manhattan Theatre Club); also a writer, her film That's What She Said, directed by Carrie Preston ("True Blood"), stars Alia Shawkat and Anne Heche and she wrote the book for the musical Once Around the Sun.

Kevin Kilner most recently starred in Is Life Worth Living at the Mint Theater (opposite wife JorDan Baker). His Broadway credits include The Glass Menagerie with Julie Harris, Calista Flockhart, and Zeljko Ivanek at Roundabout (Drama Desk & Outer Critics Circle nominations). Off-Broadway he has been seen in the original casts of Dinner with Friendsand Night and Her Stars at Manhattan Theatre Club. Films include Julia, Shopgirl, A Cinderella Story, Raising Helen, Auto Focus, American Pie 2, Music From Another Room, Home Alone 3, Twenty Bucks, Switch and Timepiece with Ellen Burstyn, James Earl Jones and Naomi Watts.

This will be the first work of Wilson's to be presented in New York since he passed away last spring. Keen Company seeks to honor the author who Frank Rich called, "our primary heir to Tennessee Williams." In Lemon Sky, Wilson recounts a personal story in autobiographical detail: his journey, at age 17, to California to live with his estranged father's second family. Clive Barnes said of the play, "It has the immediacy of the way we live, and something of the smooth-spoken hysteria." It is a portrait of this great artist as a young man, and Keen Company is proud to be bringing his singular voice back to New York.

Performances for this limited Off-Broadway engagement of Lemon Sky, at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues), will begin September 13th and continue through October 22nd only, with opening night set for September 27th.

"I have a long history with Lanford Wilson's work," said Forsman. "The first Broadway play I ever went to see was Fifth Of July. My last date with my high school sweetheart wasBurn This on Broadway. I have always loved Lanford's writing, and I have long wanted to produce one of his plays. I believe his compassion is unrivaled amongst American Playwrights, and I believe his work has a natural home at Keen Company. We're thrilled to be presenting Lemon Sky, his most personal play, and are grateful to his estate for permission to produce this important work."

Keen Company continues their tradition of presenting plays that illuminate the challenge to live generously, and these two stories about children and parents will bring these themes to thrilling life. Keen believes 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. We are 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 us through humor, heart and hope.

Performances will be at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) and will play Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; and Sunday matinees at 3pm. Tickets are $59.75. To purchase tickets, visit Telecharge.com or call 212/239-6200 or for more information or subscription opportunities for the full season, visit www.keencompany.org.