Oscar Winner Melissa Leo Departs Eve Ensler Premiere at A.R.T. | Playbill

News Oscar Winner Melissa Leo Departs Eve Ensler Premiere at A.R.T. Academy Award-winning actress Melissa Leo has bowed out of the American Repertory Theater world premiere of Eve Ensler's O.P.C., which will begin performances Nov. 28 in Cambridge, MA.

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Melissa Leo Photo by Krissie Fullerton

Pesha Rudnick directs the new work, short for "Obsessive Political Correctness," that centers on a political candidate whose daughter is a dumpster-diving squatter. It officially opens Dec. 3 for a run through Jan. 4, 2015.

A reason was not provided for Leo's departure from the production.

She will be succeeded by actress Kate Mulligan (A Streetcar Named Desire), who will be joined by "Juno" star Olivia Thirlby, Michael T. Weiss (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity), Nicole Lowrance, Liz Mikel, Peter Porte and Babak Tafti.

The creative team includes scenic designer Brett J. Banakis, costume designer ESosa, lighting designer Bradley King, sound designer Jane Shaw and projection designer Shawn Sagady.

Here's how the play is billed: "O.P.C. is an exploration of consumption and politics that asks, 'How are we to survive as a species if we insist on destroying the world we love?' A dumpster-diving freegan (Thirlby) is doing just fine squatting in an abandoned apartment, but when her mother (Mulligan), a candidate running for the Senate, tries to make her toe the party line, radicalism comes into collision with mainstream liberalism. Mother and daughter wrestle with the inconvenient truths at the heart of consumer culture, tossed between political compromise and 'obsessive political correctness.'"

Ensler's plays include The Vagina Monologues, Necessary Targets, The Treatment, The Good Body and Emotional Creature. She is the recipient of the 2011 Isabelle Stevenson Award.

For tickets, call (617) 547-8300 or visit AmericanRepertoryTheater.org.

 
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