COSTA MESA, CA -- Casting has been announced for South Coast Rep's West Coast premiere of Nilo Cruz's Two Sisters and a Piano, opening April 30 for a one-month run. Director Loretta Greco has picked Javi Mulero, Jill Remez, Carlos Sanz and Adriana Savan to handle the acting chores. The design team is Robert Brill (sets), Alex Jaeger (costumes), Geoff Korf (lighting) and Rob Miller (sound).

Cruz's play takes place in 1991, when the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union is sending shockwaves through Castro's Cuba. A radical writer and her sister are under house arrest, cut off from communicating with her husband, currently out of the country seeking asylum for his family. His intercepted letters to his wife are in the hands of a soldier assigned to guard the women. When the officer falls in love with the defiant sister, he desperately offers to trade missives for her favors.

Cruz holds an MFA from Brown University, where he taught playwriting. Among his other plays are Graffiti, Dancing on Her Knees and Bicycle Country. He traveled to London last year through the Audrey Skirball-Kenis exchange program and was guest artist at the Royal Court Theatre.

The SCR also announced the nine playwrights who will appear in the 2nd Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival in June 1999.

The writers and their plays are: Eduardo Andino (Cuchifrito, Jonathan Ceniceroz (Lupe, Now!, Tom Donaghy (The Beginning of August), Richard Greenberg (Everett Beekin), Donald Margulies (God of Vengeance), Rogelio Martinez (IllumInating Veronica, Marlane Meyer (The Mystery of Attraction) and Jose Rivera (References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot).The ninth play, John Glore's On the Jump, which received a staged reading at last year's PPF, will have its world premiere as part of the '99 Festival, May 21-June 27 on the Mainstage.

SCR is at 655 Town Center Drive. Call (714) 708-5555 for information.

-- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent