Playwright Stephen Kaplan's new work, The Book of Daniel, will be read 7 PM Nov. 16 at the Union Square Theatre in New York City.

Philip Hoffman will direct the reading of the comedy-drama about a dysfunctional family clashing at the bar mitzvah of young Daniel. The reading is sponsored by the Coffee Clutch Playwrights Workshop.

The cast includes Mark Setlock (Rent), Melissa Hart (Paramour), John Lathan (The Scarlet Pimpernel), Michelle Mallardi and Reed Armstrong (Beauty and the Beast), Farah Alvin (Kuni Leml), Travis Jordan Greisler (Les Miz, Tommy), Francine Beers, Susan Wallach and Matthew Glass.

Kaplan is a five-time winner of the Blank Theatre Company's Young Playwrights Festival in Los Angeles. He has won the New American Comedy Showcase Award (for The Book of Daniel), Bank of America's Young Artist Award and has written Tim Eless, Private Eye (starring Noah Wyle at the Blank Theatre Co.), And Jack Came Tumbling After (Old Globe, HERE and Lincoln Center Theatre's American Living Room Series), Self Addressed (Edinburgh Festival and Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles), Dreams of Reason (Northwestern University) and other plays.

The reading is free. The Union Square Theatre is at 100 E. 17th St. (at Park Avenue South). For more information, call (212) 592-3516. -- By Kenneth Jones