Rapp (Red Light Winter) directs his own work scheduled to follow the downtown company's current run of The Scottsboro Boys. Previews for Metal Children begin May 4 towards a May 19 opening night.

In his latest work, Rapp pens a "timely drama about a New York writer (Crudup) and his explosive encounter with a small American town that he travels to in order to defend one of his young adult novels, which has been banned by the local school board," according to a release. "The controversy ignites heated emotions over religious beliefs and censorship."

Crudup returns to the Vineyard Theatre where he made his professional stage debut in Chiori Miyagawa's play America Dreaming in 1994. The star known for his film work in "Almost Famous," "Big Fish," "Watchmen" and "Public Enemies," has continued to pepper his film career with stage turns. The Tony Award winner for Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia has also starred on Broadway in The Pillowman, The Elephant Man and Arcadia as well as stints in The 24 Hour Plays.

Further casting and creative team are yet to be announced. Guy Boyd, David Greenspan, Michael Shannon and Katherine Waterston starred in a June 2008 developmental run of the work.

Rapp made his Off-Broadway directorial debut with his own Red Light Winter (a 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist) and has also staged his own Bingo with the Indians as well as Christopher Denham's cagelove and Julian Sheppard's Los Angeles. As a playwright, Rapp is known for such gritty dramas as Nocturne, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Finer Noble Gases, American Sligo, Blackbird, Essential Self Defense, Gompers, Trueblinka and Faster. The Vineyard will follow Rapp's work with the musical The Burnt Part Boys (May-June 2010) in a co-production with Playwrights Horizons at that company's Off-Broadway home. Penned by Mariana Elder (book), Nathan Tysen (lyrics) and Chris Miller (music) and directed by Erica Schmidt, the musical is "set in West Virginia in 1962 [and] follows a group of teenagers whose fathers were killed ten years earlier in a tragic coal mining accident. When they learn that the mine will be reopened, they set out secretly in the hopes of seeing the site, and keeping it closed."

The Vineyard Theatre is located at 108 East 15th Street. For more information, call (212) 353-0303 or visit vineyardtheatre.org.