Film star and recent Oscar-nominee ("Affliction") Nick Nolte will play opposite Eileen (Indiscretions) Atkins in the upcoming New York premiere of Unexpected Man by Yasmina (Art) Reza. Producer Elizabeth McCann told Playbill On-Line Nolte had signed on for the play.

Though Unexpected Man had been previously announced for Off- Broadway's Promenade Theatre, McCann said it was uncertain where the play would now land, leaving open the possibility of a Broadway engagement.

McCann told PBOL on April 27, "We don't know where it would play, but Nick's more concerned with it going to the right venue [than whether or not it would be on Broadway]."

Nolte's many films include "The Prince of Tides," "Cape Fear," "48 Hours" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."

The West End production starred Atkins and Michael Gambon, with Atkins winning the Olivier Award as Best Actress in a Play for her performance as the lifelong fan of a writer who finds herself sitting across from him on a train. The play's running time is 80 minutes. Matthew Warchus directed the April 1998 London production of Man at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Warchus directed both the London and New York productions of Art; Christopher Hampton translated both Reza plays from French.

Reza's Art is still running on Broadway after winning the Tony Award in 1998 for Best Play. New cast members Buck Henry, Wayne Knight and George Segal.

Atkins's other New York credits include A Room's of One's Own and Vita and Virginia. In both, she played novelist Virginia Woolf.

-- By Robert Simonson & Sean McGrath