Federico Garcia Lorca will be coming to Off-Broadway this winter via the pen of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee.

Previously director Lawrence Sacharow told Playbill On-Line that Lorca would bow Off-Broadway in November at a theatre to be announced. Albee, however, said May 15 that January 2003 was the tentative date, adding that he had to complete some final rewrites on the work.

Jeff Ash and David Romeo produce. The red hot playwright—who had new plays on Broadway and at Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company this season— had previously voiced his intention to bring the play to New York by the end of 2001

Sacharow, Albee and the two producers have been working on the project for the last two years. (The writer actually penned the play some seven years ago.) Lorca will mark the first teaming of Sacharow and Albee since the American premiere of Three Tall Women at the Vineyard Theatre. That production effectively started an Albee renaissance which has yet to abate.

Lorca may represent Albee's grandest narrative canvas to date. The play encompasses 36 characters play be 16 actors. "It's a very big epic production," said Sacharow. "The wonderful thing about Albee is he's so eclectic. It's unlike anything he's ever done." Lorca will be Albee's second new work this year to deal with a historical figure. The Occupant stars Anne Bancroft as sculptor Louise Nevelson.

—By Robert Simonson