Cherry Lane Alternative will give The Fifth Horseman, a new play by Michael O’Keefe, a world premiere reading on Monday, November 2 at the Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center, with Don Scardino directing and a company of four led by Clark Gregg and Dylan Baker.
The play centers on a former Navy cryptologist whose memoir about his encounters with UFOs gets him called to testify before Congress, where he finds himself up against a committee with an agenda it is not declaring.
The reading cast is Dylan Baker, Ryan Eggold, Clark Gregg and Rachel Ticotin. Baker’s stage credits include The Imaginary Invalid; Eggold is best known for the NBC series New Amsterdam; Gregg for The Avengers; and Ticotin for the film Total Recall. Casting is by David Caparelliotis and Joe Gery of Caparelliotis Casting.
O’Keefe is better known on the other side of the footlights: he was an Academy Award nominee for The Great Santini, and he acted for the Cherry Lane in its 2018 production of Charles Mee’s First Love. Scardino, an actor turned director, has a long television directing résumé that takes in 30 Rock and 2 Broke Girls. Christine Catti is the production stage manager, with Jenn McNeil as assistant stage manager.
The Clark Studio Theater is inside the Samuel B. & David Rose Building at 165 West 65th Street. No curtain time or ticketing details have been announced; the reading was first reported by Playbill. Cherry Lane Alternative has also chosen the same room for its first New York reading of Deborah Stein’s Marginal Loss. More on the organization’s development work is on the Cherry Lane Alternative website.
