Opening is Jan. 10 at the Freight Entrance/Chashama Theatre (208 W. 37th St.) in Manhattan. Russian director Kama Ginkas is at the helm.

K.I. stands for Katerina Ivanovna, one of the more vivid characters from Dostoyevsky's masterwork. The haughty, once-well-off Katerina is laid low by the drinking habits of her hapless husband Marmeladov. When he dies under a street carriage, she uses the last pennies she has to put together a lavish memorial dinner, which is attended by the book's central character, Raskolnikov. The event goes tragically and comically wrong, however, when a guest accuses Katerina's daughter (who has been forced to earn money through prostitution) of a crime. The ensuing melee forces mother and children onto the street where Katerina charges her kin to sing for coins in protest to their cruel and unjust fate.

The events depicted in the piece come in the middle of the novel, long before Raskolnikov is tried and jailed for murder.

Kama Ginkas' work has been celebrated in Russia and abroad. His most notable productions have been adaptations of stories by Chekhov and Dostoyevsky. He is a professor of the Swedish Theatre Academy in Helsinki and the Moscow Art Theatre School. In the U.S., he has directed his works at The Guthrie Theatre, The American Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, and at Bard College.

The cast will include Oksana Mysina, Elizabeth Boiko, Bridget Clark, and Eugene Vovk. Tickets are $40 and are available by calling (212) 868-4444 or online at www.thefoundrytheatre.org.