Picked, Tale of Hollywood Poking a Young Actor's Mind and Heart, Opens Off-Broadway | Playbill

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News Picked, Tale of Hollywood Poking a Young Actor's Mind and Heart, Opens Off-Broadway Michael Stahl-David, of the horror film "Cloverfield," stars as an actor who gets his big break in Hollywood in the Vineyard Theatre's world-premiere production of Christopher Shinn's Picked, opening April 20.

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Liz Stauber and Michael Stahl-David Photo by Carol Rosegg

Previews for the Off-Broadway staging began April 6 under the direction of Hartford Stage artistic director Michael Wilson, who previously directed Shinn's What Didn't Happen at Playwrights Horizons and the Broadway production of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. The run is scheduled through May 15.

The character study looks at a young actor, Kevin, whose brain is picked to provide elements in a new blockbuster film that he will star in, directed by a James Cameron-like Hollywood director.

According to the Vineyard, "Picked concerns a young actor who prepares for his life to change when a legendary director casts him as the lead in a big-budget Hollywood movie. But he is not prepared for what comes next, and everything he knows about himself will be called into question as he discovers what it means to be 'picked.'"

In addition to Stahl-David (The Overwhelming, "Cloverfield"), the cast includes Mark Blum (The Long Christmas Ride Home, Twelve Angry Men) as the director, John; Donna Hanover (The Vagina Monologues) as an interviewer and a casting director; Tom Lipinski (A Light Lunch) as a fellow actor, Nick; and Liz Stauber (Where Do We Live) as Kevin's girlfriend Jen.

The staging has set design by Rachel Hauck, costume design by Mattie Ullrich, lighting design by Russell Champa and sound design by Jill BC DuBoff.

Shinn's plays include Dying City, a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, along with Four, Other People, The Coming World and Now Or Later.

For more information about Vineyard Theatre, visit the company's website at www.vineyardtheatre.org or call (212) 353-0303.

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Liz Stauber, Michael Stahl-David and Tom Lipinski Photo by Carol Rosegg
 
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