Howard Korder's play, The Hollow Lands, will have its world premiere at South Coast Repertory on Jan. 14, 2000. Korder's previous works include The Lights and Search and Destroy.

The new play was given a reading Dec. 14, 1998 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 also piloted the second 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.

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