Howard Korder's new play, The Hollow Lands, will be given a reading Dec. 14 (recently changed from Dec. 7) as part of the NewSCRipts [sic] series at South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, CA. An earlier draft of the play was presented in June as part SCR's Pacific Playwrights Festival. That version was directed by David Chambers, who will also pilot the new reading.

Hollow Lands is a bleak examination of American culture -- familiar territory for the man who wrote Search and Destroy and The Lights. The play's time frame, however, makes a change of pace for Korder. The work's central character, James Newman, is an Irish immigrant who flees to Manhattan in 1815. He quickly abandons his new wife and instead takes an ill-advised 30-year journey across untamed America, spellbound by the promise of Manifest Destiny.

Simon Gillig, Armando Duran and Mark Harelik star in this epic play, which features more than 40 characters.

The NewSCRipts series has produced such works as Donald Margulies' Collected Stories, Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain and Amy Freed's Freedomland.

For information on The Hollow Lands, call (714) 708-5555. -- By Robert Simonson