The Joe Orton work was to have reunited last season's The Mystery of Irma Vep stars James Lecesne and Jeffery Roberson. Lecesne's casting in an HBO project is the cause for the change. Rather than recast, Hartford Stage has decided to postpone the work for another season until both actors are available.

Bad Dates will fill the same slot in the theatre's 41st season, Jan. 6-Feb. 6, 2005. Tickets for What the Butler Saw will be honored for the same date, time, and seating location for Bad Dates. Questions or concerns regarding the change should be directed to the Hartford Stage box office at (860) 527-5151.

In the Rebeck play, Jefferies will star as restaurant manager and shoe connoisseur Haley Walker who has recently rejoined the dating scene. As she prepares for yet another evening out, the divorced single mother relates experiences of her gentlemen callers.

Jefferies has appeared at Hartford Stage in 8 by Tenn, Edward Albee's Seascape, A Streetcar Named Desire, Three Sisters and The Night of the Iguana. She has also appeared on Broadway in The Wake of Jamey Foster and Off-Broadway in What Didn't Happen.

The Connecticut company will also present David Hare's The Bay at Nice (Oct. 14-Nov. 14) starring Estelle Parsons, the holiday staging of A Christmas Carol (Nov. 23-Dec. 26), Eduardo Machado's The Cook (Feb. 24-March 27, 2005), Othello (April 7-May 8, 2005) and Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (May 26-June 26, 2005). A Hartford Stage-Long Wharf Theatre co-production of The Mystery of Irma Vep with James Lecesne and Jeffery Roberson is still slated to play at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT, Nov. 10-Dec. 12. The staging marks the first time both Connecticut companies have collaborated.

Tickets for Bad Dates at Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street in downtown Hartford, CT are available by calling (860) 527-5151. For more information, visit www.hartfordstage.org.