A theatre and dates for the New York premiere of the London play have not been announced, nor has there been any official confirmation from the producers about casting possibilities.

John Crowley is expected to direct the play by the author of The Beauty Queen of Leenane. The new work is about a writer in a totalitarian state who is interrogated about the horrific events in his short stories.

An earlier report in Variety indicated Crudup ("Stage Beauty," The Elephant Man) was being sought to play Katurian, a writer who is interrogated about the content of his work (such as children giving their fathers razor blade-filled apples to eat), and, more frighteningly, their similarity to child murders that are occurring in the same town.

The Pillowman, which was a hit for London's Royal National Theatre, was previously thought to land on Broadway in fall 2004. Spring 2005 is the new expectation.

Bob Boyett, Robert Fox, The Shubert Organization and The National Theatre will produce.

Pillowman would be the third National show to be brought over by Boyett, after the recent Jumpers and Michael Frayn's Democracy.

Both Pillowman and Democracy were nominated for the Olivier Awards Best Play prize. In what might be considered a minor upset, Democracy lost to The Pillowman.

The Pillowman is from the Irish writer who gave us the Leenane trilogy — The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West. He was Tony Award-nominated for Best Play two years running, for the Broadway transfers of The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (1998) and The Lonesome West (1999). Pillowman opened at London's National Theatre on Nov. 13, 2003, in the Cottesloe.