Playbill On-Line has learned that director David Leveaux, currently working on the Broadway production of The Real Thing, will be helming the Roundabout Theatre Company (RTC) production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms at the American Airlines Theatre this fall. This will be the third time Leveaux has directed an O'Neill play on Broadway (see below).

Desire is scheduled to run at the American Airlines Theatre directly after the The Man Who Came to Dinner, which stars Nathan Lane. Dinner, RTC's first show at the reconstructed Selwyn house on West 42nd Street, should begin previews June 30.

Leveaux's current show, The Real Thing, is transferring from London's Donmar Warehouse, where Leveaux was recently named associate director. The Real Thing starts its 20-week limited engagement at the Barrymore in April. Leveaux has done two other productions at Donmar: the 1996 musical Nine and the 1997 Olivier Award-winning production of Electra starring Zoe Wanamaker. Like The Real Thing, Electra transferred to Broadway.

Leveaux's other London credits include Harold Pinter's Moonlight, No Man's Land and Betrayal.

His Broadway productions include two other O'Neill plays -- Anna Christie with Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson (Tony Award for Best Revival) and A Moon for the Misbegotten (Tony nomination for Outstanding Direction), making Desire his third shot at directing O'Neill on Broadway. No other casting or production information was available on Desire at press time. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Leveaux has directed 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Romeo and Juliet. For the Royal National Theatre, Leveaux directed Strindberg's The Father. Since 1993, he has been artistic director of Theatre Project Tokyo, Japan, where other productions included Yukio Mishima's Modern Noh Plays, The Changeling, Hedda Gabler and Mishima's version of Jean Cocteau's Two Headed Eagle.

Leveaux's opera credits include The Turn of the Screw for Scottish Opera; The Marriage of Figaro, and Richard Strauss's Salome at the English National Opera.

-- By Murdoch McBride