They played their New York hand all through the summer, and now it's time for Chicago in the fall. The Charles Nelson Reilly directed revival of D.L. Coburn's Pulitzer-winning comedy/drama, The Gin Game clasped its winnings and walked away from Broadway's Lyceum Theatre Aug. 31, after 20 previews and 144 regular performances.

The show reopen at Chicago's Royal George Theatre, Sept. 9, for an open-ended run, again featuring Julie Harris and Charles Durning.

The Gin Game started Broadway previews April 4 and opened April 20. The show was presented under the auspices of Tony Randall's National Actors' Theatre, with Manny Kladitis as executive producer.

(NAT had been dormant since George C. Scott's various health and legal problems forced him to leave their production of Inherit The Wind in late May 1996. (Durning was Scott's co-star in Wind.) Next up for NAT at the Lyceum: Tony Randall and Jack Klugman in Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, which tries out at FL's Coconut Grove Playhouse, Oct. 28-Nov. 23, and is set to start previews in NY, Nov. 28.)

As for Gin Game, Harris is one of Broadway's most distinguished actresses, having won five Tony Awards -- the most ever won by a single actor. Her roles have included Sally Bowles in I Am A Camera (later musicalized as Cabaret), St. Joan in Lillian Hellman's The Lark and as Emily Dickenson in The Belle of Amherst,, also directed by Charles Nelson Reilly. She appeared opposite Durning on Broadway once before, in The Au Pair Man at Lincoln Center. Durning won the Tony for his Big Daddy in 1990's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and has has major roles in That Championship Season, Indians plus many other plays, TV shows and films.

For tickets and information on The Gin Game at the Royal George Theatre, call (312) 988-9000.