Larry Bryggman, Johanna Day and Ben Shenkman join Mary Louise Parker for the Manhattan Theatre Club's staging of Proof, by David Auburn, opening May 23 following previews that started May 2.

In the new work, set in Chicago, a mysterious young woman faces the death of a genius father, an unexpected suitor and a mysterious mathematical proof. Daniel Sullivan, who helmed Broadway's current A Moon for the Misbegotten, as well as Off-Broadway's Dinner With Friends, directs on MTC's Stage I. Performances continue to July 9.

Parker performed in New York stagings of Prelude to a Kiss, How I Learned To Drive and Communicating Doors and is known for her film acting in "Bullets Over Broadway," "Grand Canyon" and "Fried Green Tomatoes."

Bryggman, who plays Dr. John Dixon on TV's "As the World Turns," is seen frequently on New York stages. On Broadway, he's appeared in Prelude to a Kiss, Picnic, Richard III, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, and Off-Broadway he's acted in Bodies, Rest and Motion, New England, Dearly Beloved and Wolf Lullaby, among others.

Day appeared in New York's Vicks Boy, How I Learned to Drive, Oedipus (Blue Light Theatre Company) and more. Shenkman's credits include Roundabout's The Deep Blue Sea, Baby Anger at Playwrights Horizons and Antony and Cleopatra at the Public Theater.

Playwright Auburn is a recent recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. His plays include Skyscraper, (Greenwich House Theatre in 1997), Fifth Planet (New York Stage and Film), Miss You (HBO Comedy Arts Fest) and The Next Life (Juilliard School).

Designers for Proof are John Lee Beatty (set), Jess Goldstein (costume), Pat Collins (lighting), Jon Gromada (sound).

MTC is at 131 W. 55th Street. For $50 ticket information call, (212) 581 1212, or try the MTC web site at http://www.mtc.org.