Tony nominee Jayne Atkinson (The Rainmaker) and Jeffrey Jones will star in Triangles for Two by David Wiltse, July 24-Aug. 5, at the Westport Country Playhouse, Atkinson told Playbill On-Line. Joe Grifasi will direct.

The world premiere comedy asks the question, Do men and women speak the same language?

Atkinson is currently enjoying a moment in the sun: her performance in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of The Rainmaker won her a Tony Award nomination. Her other credits include Ivanov at Lincoln Center Theater and The Skriker at the Public Theater.

Jeffrey Jones is a familiar face to film audiences. Among his many supporting turns are roles in "Amadeus," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "The Crucible," and "Beetlejuice."

Director Grifasi is primarily known as an actor, with film credits including "Presumed Innocent," "Money Train" and "One Fine Day." *

The Westport Playhouse summer season is shaping up to be a seriously star-studded affair, boasting such names as John Cunningham, Paul Newman, Paul Rudd, Scott Wolf and Swoosie Kurtz. Much of this has to do with Joanne Woodward, who assumed a position of authority at the historic Playhouse this year.

The Westport Playhouse was founded in 1931 by Laurence Langer, the co-founder of the Theatre Guild. The 1830 barn Langer selected was converted into a theatre by architect Cleon Throckmorton, who had also designed the Cape Playhouse in East Dennis, MA. The stage was given the same dimensions at Broadway's Times Square Theatre, in order to better serve the transfer of plays from Westport to New York.

Appearing in the theatre early years were such actors as Helen Hayes, Eva Le Gallienne, Jessica Tandy and Henry Fonda. The Playhouse also occasionally hosted play tryouts, which went on to success on Broadway, including Blue Denim, Come Back, Little Sheba and Butterflies Are Free.

*

Paul Newman will step on the stage for the first time in perhaps decades when he appears with his wife, Woodward, in A.R. Gurney's Ancestral Voices, at the Playhouse, July 17-22. David Saint will direct a cast that also includes James Naughton, Swoosie Kurtz and Paul Rudd.

Though Woodward has gone back and forth between film and theatre during her career, Newman has forged a career almost exclusively in film since starring in "The Silver Chalice" in 1955. He won his first film contract after being seen in William Inge's Picnic, his Broadway debut. Among his more notable films are "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The String," "The Verdict," "The Hustler," "The Color of Money" and "Mr. And Mrs. Bridge."

Woodward's most recent theatre work was filling in for Eileen Heckart in the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of The Waverly Gallery in 1999. At Westport, she will also direct W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife. Her many films include "The Three Faces of Eve" and "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge."

Ancestral Voices premiered last fall at Lincoln Center Theater and will have its first regional mounting at New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse this spring. A flexible piece, along the lines of Gurney's Love Letters, in which actors read from scripts, Voices concerns an older woman's divorce from a man and her subsequent marriage to his best friend.

As at LCT, the Westport production will feature a changing line-up. July 10-15, the play will feature Jason Robards, Jane Curtin, Scott Wolf and Frank Converse.

*

The Constant Wife will open the Westport season. The 1926 play tells of a well-heeled marriage woman who challenges the double standard against her sex. Woodward directs. No cast has been selected.

Next up is Austin Pendleton's new play, Orson's Shadow, June 26-July 8. Since bowing at Steppenwolf Theatre Company's Garage space earlier this year, the drama, Pendleton's third, has become a hot property, landing productions at Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Old Globe Theatre. The play is widely speculated to land in a major New York theatre sometime this fall. Orson concerns the imagined interactions between theatre legends Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Joan Plowright and Kenneth Tynan as they rehearse a 1960 London production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros.

The remainder of the season runs as follows:

• Triangles for Two by David Wiltse, July 24-Aug. 5, a premiere comedy which asks whether men and women speak the same language. Jayne Atkinson and Jeffrey Jones star in the two-hander. Joe Grifasi directs.

• Morphic Resonance by Katherine Burger, Aug. 7-19, a comedy/drama about thirtysomethings in love in Manhattan, starring John Cunningham directed by James Naughton.
• Nicolette and Aucassin, book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg and music by David Friedman, Aug. 28-Sept. 9, a premiere musical of a 12th Century fable, featuring Bronson Pinchot.

Tickets are $10-$38. The Westport Playhouse is located off Route 1 in Westport, CT. Call (203) 227-4177 or contact the website at www.westportplayhouse.com.

--By Robert Simonson