The Shubert Organization is still working out the details for a planned mounting of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death on Broadway this-coming fall. As previously reported, Richard Greenberg's new adaptation of the drama will be directed by Sean Mathias. Dessie Moynihan, Creative Projects Director for the Shubert Org, told Playbill On-Line the next few weeks will determine whether everything falls into place as far as casting and venue. She said it was "premature to comment," however, on reports that Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren are in negotiations for the leads. She also noted that because Shubert houses are booked up for the spring, speculating on where Dance would play would be unfair to currently-running shows.

The Dance of Death was written by the Swedish master in 1901 and belongs to Strindberg's later, expressionistic phase, a period which produced such classic works as The Ghost Sonata and The Dream Play.

The English Mathias is best known in America for his production of Indiscretions, a retitled reworking of French surrealist Jean Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles. The Broadway production starred Eileen Atkins, Kathleen Turner, Roger Rees, Cynthia Nixon and Jude Law.

Greenberg's many works include Three Days of Rain and Night and Her Stars. A couple of other Greenberg plays may reach New York in the coming season. The Dazzle has long been scheduled for a Drama Dept. staging. And the dramatist's latest, Everett Beekin, premiered at South Coast Repertory Theatre last fall and is now reportedly looking for a home in Manhattan.

The idea of a Broadway production of the often-forbidding Strindberg is not as outlandish as it might seem. A mounting of The Father, starring Frank Langella, was a hit for the Roundabout Theatre Company in the mid-90s.