The world premiere production of Brian Friel's latest, Give Me Your Answer, Do!, opens March 12 at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. After its run there through May 10, the show will move to London's Royal Haymarket Theatre, June 2, and target Broadway for October 1997.

As in Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Dancing At Lughnasa, the story is set in mythical Ballybeg in the Irish county of Donegal. Answer occurs in a ramshackle old manse inhabited by a middle aged novelist and his wife. He must decide whether to sell his manuscripts to an American University. The title of Give Me Your Answer, Do! is taken from the popular old song, "Daisy, Daisy," sung most famously, if not most beautifully, by HAL the computer in 2,001 A Space Odyssey.. The play will make use of such other songs as "Come Into The Garden, Maud" and tunes by Fats Domino and Fats Waller.

In the Friel drama, which the author directs, Daisy is played by Catherine Byrne, who starred Off-Broadway in Friel's Molly Sweeney, on Broadway in Friel's Wonderful Tennessee, and at the Abbey in Lughnasa. Also in the cast are Aideen O'Kelly, Tom Hickey, Frances Tomelty, Des McAleer, David Kelly, Darragh Kelly, Kathleen Barrington and Pauline Hutton.

Joan O'Cleary designed the costumes for Answer, Frank Flood the sets and Mick Hughes the lighting.

Other plays by Brian Friel include Faith Healer (1979), Aristocrats (1979) and Translations (1980). --By David Lefkowitz