A production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger starring Reg Rogers (Proposals, Holiday) will begin the Classic Stage Company's 32nd year -- its second under the aegis of artistic director Barry Edelstein and producing director Beth Emelson.

Last season saw a marked change under Edelstein's charge, with a virtual Hollywood "Who's Who" treading the boards of the 14th Street space, rather than their former mix of classic with a "downtown" feel. Performers included Uma Thurman, John Turturro, Tony Shaloub, Christopher Lloyd and Roger Rees.

Osborne's Anger is conventionally structured five-character play that focuses on Jimmy Porter and his dissatisfactions with the world, with a French absurdist "life is meaningless" bent. Throughout the play, Jimmy baits his upper-class wife Alison into arguments. Other plays by Osborne, the chairman of the board of London's "Angry Young Men" playwriting group of the 1960s, include 1957's The Entertainer, and 1965's Inadmissible Evidence.

Rogers credits include Proposals, Holiday (Tony and Drama Desk nominations), The Moliere Comedies and Four Dogs and a Bone. Regional credits include: Cellini in John Patrick Shanley's Cellini at New York Stage and Film, Dealers Choice at the Long Wharf (Connecticut Critics Circle nomination) as well as work at Yale Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Guthrie, Williamstown, Old Globe and the Eisenhower Theatre. He is currently starring in Richard Greenberg's Hurrah at Last.

Artistic director Edelstein, a Rhodes scholar, was trained as a dramaturg and assistant director on the NY Shakespeare Festival's "Shakespeare Marathon." He went on to stage The Merchant of Venice and Steve Martin's Wasp and Other Plays at the Public Theatre. Other credits include How I Learned To Drive at MD's Center Stage and shows at RI's Trinity Rep and the NJ Shakespeare Festival. The rest of Look Back's cast and the remainder of CSC's season has yet to be announced.

-- By Sean McGrath