Melia Bensussen directs the new comedy, rescheduled from last season, to play at the La Jolla Playhouse's Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, Sept. 20-Oct. 23 with an opening night slated for Sept. 25. Original music is by Michael Roth.

Jere Burns stars as the new Artistic Director of Michigan's Northernmost Shakespeare Festival who attempts to complete the Bard's canon with the cursed Shakespeare tragedy in The Scottish Play. The fearless director, who defies the Macbeth hex, soon befalls the infamous curse as fires, floods, frogs, mysterious illness and injury, ex-wives and a hunky Hollywood half-wit rains down upon the back woods production.

Burns — the recent star of Broadway's After the Night and the Music, known to television audiences from "Dear John" and "Good Morning, Miami" — is featured in a cast that includes Peter Bartlett (The Frogs, "One Life to Live,"), Robert L. Devaney (The Violet Hour, Polish Joke), Erik Heger (Naked, Romeo and Juliet - ACT), Morgan Hollingsworth, Susan Knight (Once in A Lifetime, A Forest in Arden), Bridget Regan (Sweet Bird of Youth - La Jolla), Diana Ruppe (The Cherry Orchard - Atlantic Theater Company), John Vennema (The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Racing Demon) and Rebecca Wisocky (Hot 'n' Throbbin, 36 Views).

Blessing's previous works seen at La Jolla Playhouse include A Walk in the Woods, Two Rooms, Down the Road and Going to St. Ives. Other plays include Patient A, Thief River, Eleemosynary, Cobb, Whores, Black Sheep and Chesapeake.

The La Jolla Playhouse 2005 season will continue with the Theatre de la Jeune Lune production of Moliere's The Miser. (Oct. 11-Nov. 13) and the Aquila Theatre Company production of Much Ado About Nothing (Jan. 17-Feb. 19, 2006). La Jolla Playhouse is located on the corner of La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla, CA. For more information on the company, visit www.lajollaplayhouse.com.