The Manhattan Class Company’s third production of the season, Angus MacLachlan's Dead Eye Boy, opens April 17. Starring Lili Taylor, the show will run through May 5. Dead Eye Boy was originally scheduled to open Jan. 18, then April 25, but finally started previews April 10.

As reported, Taylor last appeared on the New York stage in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Three Sisters, directed by Scott Elliott. She played the youngest of the sisters, Irina. Her other credits include Richard Foreman's What Did He See?. On film, she has been seen in "High Fidelity," "Say Anything," "Mystic Pizza" and "Dogfight."

MCC traditionally stages new works but makes an exception withDead Eye Boy. The hard-edged drama involves an ex-Marine, a single mother (Taylor) and her 14-year-old son and their "struggle toward light," as MacLachlan described it to Playbill On-Line. "You have to face the darkness within yourself and the world," MacLachlan said, "otherwise it will destroy you and everyone else around you."

The play, which contains strong language and adult situations deemed inappropriate for children, ran in March and April last year at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. MacLachlan's play was developed after winning the 1999 Lois and Richard Rosenthal New Play Prize. MacLachlan is North Carolina-based. His eight other plays include Marginal Living, Buena Vista, Ariadne Duvall and Divertiment O. The latter two were produced in New York by Circle Repertory Theatre and The Wonderhouse Theatre, respectively. MacLachlan's, short film, Tater Tomater, aired on "American Playhouse" and was viewed at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.

MCC is located at 120 W. 28 St. MCC has played a pivotal role in numerous artistic careers and has staged such shows as Wit, Good As New, The Grey Zone, Nixon's Nixon, Girl Gone, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Fun and Beirut. Last season MCC staged Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman's Trudy Blue and Jose Rivera's Sueno. —By Murdoch McBride