The hit Off-Broadway production of Neil LaBute's bash -- starring Calista Flockhart ("Ally McBeal"), Ron Eldard and Paul Rudd -- will end its limited run on July 24. The trio of one-act monologues began performances on June 14 and quickly sold out its five-week run after opening on June 24.

There had been some talk of extending the show with two new stars to replace Flockhart, who leaves on July 25 to begin filming the new season of "Ally McBeal," and Eldard, who takes over the role of Bill in Death of a Salesman on July 28. There was no official word on who would be in the replacement cast, but The New York Times reported (July 2) that negotiations were in progress with Sarah Jessica Parker (Once Upon a Mattress) and Aaron Eckhart (LaBute's films "In the Company of Men" & "Your Friends and Neighbors").

Originally titled A Gaggle of Saints (the name of one of the three plays), the evening was renamed bash. It concerns LaBute's usual theme which, he told the Times, "is basically beautiful people doing awful things." Joe Mantello (Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Mineola Twins) directs.

Flockhart appears in the first monologue, entitled Medea Redux, about a teenage girl who gets romantically involved with her teacher. Eldard anchors the second play, Iphigenia in Orem, playing a Mormon salesman whose unconscious misogyny leads him to a tragic decision. Flockhart and Rudd appear in the final play, A Gaggle of Saints, as a pair of college sweethearts whose dream night in Manhattan goes violently wrong.

Flockhart's stage credits include the Roundabout's Three Sisters and The Glass Menagerie, as well as Mad Forest Off-Broadway and Off Off-Broadway's Bovver Boys. The run is sold out, but, for those for whom hope never dies, the number at The Douglas Fairbanks Theatre is (212) 239 6200.

-- By Robert Simonson and Sean McGrath