The Manhattan Theatre Club production is set to begin Dec. 1 at New York City Center Stage I toward an opening of Dec. 19. The limited engagement plays to Jan. 22, 2012.

Leigh Silverman (Well, From Up Hee, Chinglish) will direct the play that features Tony Award and four-time Emmy Award winner Hyde Pierce as Paul Barrow, "an obsessive book editor on a major deadline," according to MTC. "With an assistant (Chernus) who's been camping in the office, a famous author (Perez) threatening to bail on him and an intern (DiGiovanni) who is no help at all, Paul's just about had it! But when his fiery daughter (Minifie) shows up and lambasts him in Russian, Paul faces a glaring personal error that can't be corrected with red ink."

The creative team for Close Up Space includes Todd Rosenthal (scenic design), Emily Rebholz (costume design), Matthew Frey (lighting design) and Jill BC Du Boff (sound design).

Perez ("Fearless," "It Could Happen to You," "Lackawanna Blues"), DiGiovanni (who makes her Off-Broadway debut here) and Minifie (The Pillowman, Landscape of the Body) are newcomers to the cast. Hyde Pierce ("Frasier," Curtains) and Chernus (The Aliens, In The Wake) were previously announced.

Development of Close Up Space was supported by the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center during a residency at the National Playwrights Conference of 2010. Molly Smith Metzler is the author of Elemeno Pea, which recently premiered at the 2011 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre in Louisville. Her plays — which include Training Wisteria and Carve — have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club 7@7, Playwrights Horizons, The O'Neill Theater Center, Ars Nova, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, Summer Play Festival (SPF), Cherry Lane Mentor Project, hotINK, London's Tristan Bates Theatre, Boston Playwrights' Theatre and the Kennedy Center, where she was the recipient of three KCACTF Awards (The Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award, The Mark Twain Comedy Award and The David Mark Cohen Award). She is a member of EST, the Ars Nova Play Group and Primary Stages Writing Group; she has been in residence at New River Dramatists, Montana Rep, Williamstown and Hedgebrook. She holds an MFA from Tisch and is a recent graduate of The Julliard School, where she was a two-time recipient of the LeComte du Nuoy Prize from Lincoln Center. She lives in Brooklyn Heights with her husband and their Boston terrier.

For more information on MTC, please visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.