Patrick Breen, Blythe Danner, Polly Draper, Christopher Fitzgerald, Joel Grey, Mark McKinney, Joe Morton, and Louis Zorich will be featured in the Jan. 30 Voices! reading of Jules Feiffer's Little Murders. Feiffer himself will read the stage directions. Steve Lawson directs.

Voices!, the new play-reading series at City Center, began on Nov. 11, 2000, with a one-night-only presentation of Arsenic and Old Lace, starring Alec Baldwin, Joanne Woodward and Celeste Holm.

Danner will star in the upcoming revival of Follies on Broadway. Fitzgerald is featured in the hit Off-Broadway show, Fully Committed. Grey most recently appeared on the New York stage in Give Me Your Answer, Do! Off-Broadway. Draper's recent credits include Trudy Blue and Closer. McKinney and Breen were featured in the original cast of Fuddy Meers at Manhattan Theatre Club, while Zorich appeared briefly in the Encores! production of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

*

For years now, neglected but worthy musicals have received deserved attention through the City Center Encores! series of concert productions. Now, plays will finally get equal time. City Center Voices! will be produced by actor Alec Baldwin, with Steve Lawson as artistic director. The inaugural roster will feature three plays: Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace, Nov. 11; Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, Jan. 30, 2001; and Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil and Daniel Webster, March 13. Lawson will direct all three.

The cast for Lace was as impressive as any Encores! line-up. Joanne Woodward and Celeste Holm played the crazy old sisters, who do away with their house guests in their spare time. Baldwin played the Cary Grant role of their theatre critic nephew.

—By Robert Simonson