Set in a New York City cafe, the dark comedy concerns a group of upwardly mobile Manhattanites caught in the thrall of a pastry shop's teen-age coffee server, who leads them to espresso-stained social peril when she asks them to be her friends.

The cast includes Cathie Boruch, David Crowe, Traci Hovel, Kristian Leavy, Francis McWilliams, Darren Polito, Alexandra Smith, Brad Lee Thomason and Yvonne Wright.

Playwright Simonson's other plays include Kicker, a recipient of a 2002 Pilgrim Project grant and seen this past fall in the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s “Octoberfest”; and Which One’s Yours, which was produced by Soho Rep and Adobe Theatre Company in 1999. Cafe Society will receive its Chicago premiere in April and its Minneapolis debut in the fall. Simonson is currently at work with Michael Counts and Gales Gates on a new project entitled The World. He is also the editor of Playbill On-Line.

Director King has worked Off Off-Broadway and on the New York and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She directed the New York premiere of O’Neill’s Warnings at the Provincetown Playhouse and collaborated with Patrick Tull to transform Eric Blau’s novel, The Hero of the Slocum, into a one-man show.

Cafe Society will play at 7 PM Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, March 13 through June 13 at the 13th Street Repertory, located in New York at 50 West 13th Street. Call (212) 675-6677 for reservations.