The third play by Tony Award-winning producer Stewart F. Lane and his second collaboration with former New York Post theatre critic Ward Morehouse III, If It Was Easy... has earned a New Play Award nomination from the American Theatre Critics Association (ACTA).

The Lane-Morehouse play was recently produced in Atlanta at the Seven Stages Theatre and starred Kevin Dobson (“Knots Landing,” “Kojak”) and Bonnie Comley (“Nightlife TV”).

ATCA has selected new plays produced outside New York City since 1974 for inclusion in its “Best Plays,” the theater yearbook started in 1920 by Burns Mantle which is currently edited by Otis Guernsey. In January 2001, six New Play finalists will be chosen and followed by three winners who will be announced in April 2001 at the Humana Festival in Louisville, KY.

The producers report that If It Was Easy... is “scheduled for a spring 2001 New York production,” although a theatre has not been named.

As earlier reported, Lane told Playbill On-Line that If It Were Easy... features contemporary themes and was written in the collaborative style of the past when producers were often expected to be more closely associated with creative development than they are today. Despite nine revisions, Lane said, the play is still about a Sinatra musical which "becomes a runaway hit when the mob gets involved." Lane helmed the Atlanta production. His recent directing credits include A.R. Gurney's The Golden Age at Nantucket's Actors Theatre and a University of Oklahoma production, Accentuate the Positive, written by Frederick Stroppel. Two staged readings of If It Were Easy were also directed by Lane.

-- By Murdoch McBride