Two of Lincoln Center Theatre's brightest lights -- Nicholas Hytner, director of the Tony-winning Carousel, and Wendy Wasserstein, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles -- have taken a sharp turn into film.

Hytner is currently directing what Wasserstein refers to as her "first big studio screenplay" -- an adaptation of a novel by Stephen McCauley called The Object of My Affection. Jennifer Aniston, on hiatus from TV's "Friends," and Paul Rudd, on leave from Broadway's The Last Night of Ballyhoo, are starred.

"It's about a gay man and a straight woman," says Wasserstein, who has dealt with such a configuration before in The Heidi Chronicles, The Sisters Rosensweig and, currently, An American Daughter. "He's a first-grade teacher in Manhattan, and she's a social worker in Brooklyn. It's about their friendship and their world. This is a New York story, and it's all shot here."

Alan Alda and Allison Janney play an East Side couple in the film. Also co-starred are Nigel (Shadowlands) Hawthorne and Timothy ("Wings") Daly.

-- By Harry Haun