John Malkovich, Terry Kinney, Gary Sinise, Amy Morton and Frank Galati will all be a part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 1999-2000 season. Three of the 24th season's five mainstage shows were announced April 19.

As previously revealed, Gary Sinise will star as McMurphy and Amy Morton as Nurse Ratched in Dale Wasserman's adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, April 6-June 4, 2000. Terry Kinney will direct.

The show will be presented at Steppenwolf by arrangement with Michael Leavitt and Fox Theatricals. As for a possible transfer to Broadway in the 2000-01 season, a production spokesperson told PBOL (March 25), "It's our hope that will happen; Fox Theatricals owns the New York rights, and that's why we're with them."

(A Broadway revival of the play starring Sinise and directed by Joe Mantello had been rumored for over a year, but Mantello is no longer with the production.)

Also in the 1999-2000 season: * A production to be announced, Sept. 16-Nov. 7.

* Hysteria, Terry Johnson's comedy about Sigmund Freud's last days in England, in 1939, directed by John Malkovich, Nov. 26, 1999-Jan. 22, 2000

* A production to be announced, Feb. 3, 2000-March 26, 2000.

* One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest April 6, 2000-June 4, 2000.

* Valparaiso, Don DeLillo's exploration of one man's ordinary business trip to Valparaiso, IN., directed by Frank Galati, July 6, 2000 Aug. 27, 2000.

In Valparaiso, which premiered earlier this year at MA's A.R.T., a man who took the wrong plane to a mysterious destination now finds himself the obsessive focus of interviews and talk shows.

With Valparaiso, world-renowned novelist DeLillo ("White Noise," "Libra" and "Underworld") made his second venture into the theater world. His first play, The Dayroom, premiered at the A.R.T. in 1986. The novel "Libra," about Lee Harvey Oswald, was adapted into a play by Malkovich and produced by Steppenwolf in 1994.

Co-starring with Sinise in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as the frigid Nurse Ratched, will be Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton (Steppenwolf's Three Days of Rain). Sinise and Kinney are co-founders of Steppenwolf. The former was nominated for a 1995 Best Supporting Actor Oscar in "Forrest Gump," and for a Best Director of a Play Tony Award for directing the revival of Sam Shepard's Buried Child (which originated at Steppenwolf). Sinise won acclaim in 1988 when he starred as Tom Joad in the Steppenwolf adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath that won a Tony Award as Best Play when the production transferred to Broadway.

-- By Sean McGrath and
Kenneth Jones