Sam Helfrich, who also staged Belber's Transparency of Val, will direct the limited run Sept. 9-24 in the June Havoc Theatre. Knife Edge Productions and Swinestars Productions present the engagement that will officially open Sept. 13.
Belber is also announced to appear in a post-show talkback following the Sept. 14 evening performance.
The cast includes Don DiPaolo (Go Go Killers at Sage Theater), Neil Holland (Red Light Winter at Theatre 54, Stephen Adly Guirgis' Untitled/Ass Play with LAByrinth) and Therese Plaehn (Paradise Lost at A.R.T.).
According to the presenters, "Jon, an aspiring filmmaker on the verge of hitting it big, hooks up for the weekend with his best friend from high school, Vince, a volunteer fireman who makes his money selling dope. The old friends meet up at a Motel 6 in Lansing, Michigan, where Jon's new film is being screened at a film festival, but Vince has more than one reason to make his way all the way to Lansing: his old high school girlfriend, Amy, also lives there. Over the course of a pulsating, tension-filled evening, Vince gets Jon to reveal a dark secret from their past which continues to haunt both of the men, and when Amy eventually joins them, their shared past finally catches up with all three of them, setting off a wildly unpredictable chain of events with consequences both laughable and tragic. Beneath its suspenseful, high stakes surface, Tape examines questions of motive, memory, truth and perception, and asks us whether we can ever escape those formative high school years."
Designing Tape are Laura Jellinek (scenic design), Kate Ashton (lighting design) and Nancy Leary (costume design). Heather Arnson is the production stage manager. Belber is at work on a new musical Black Sun with Counting Crows front man Adam Duritz. His plays also include Geometry of Fire, Match, Dusk Rings a Bell, McReele, Fault Lines, One Million Butterflies, Carol Mulroney and A Small, Melodramatic Story. He is also an associate writer of The Laramie Project.
For tickets, priced $18, visit TapeNYC.com. The Abingdon Arts Complex is located at 312 West 36th Street.
