Gary Sinise will star as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, April 6-June 4, 2000.

Terry Kinney will direct the play, adapted by Dale Wasserman (Man of La Mancha) from Ken Kesey's classic novel. The show will be presented at Steppenwolf by arrangement with Michael Leavitt and Fox Theatricals. As for a possible transfer to Broadway in the 2000-01 season, a production spokesperson told PBOL (March 25), "It's our hope that will happen; Fox Theatricals owns the New York rights, and that's why we're with them."

(A Broadway revival of the play starring Sinise and directed by Joe Mantello had been rumored for over a year, but Mantello is no longer with the production.)

Co-starring with Sinise, as the frigid Nurse Ratched will be Steppenwolf ensemble member, Amy Morton (Steppenwolf's Three Days of Rain). Sinise and Kinney are co-founders of Steppenwolf. The former was nominated for a 1995 Best Supporting Actor Oscar in Forrest Gump, and for a Best Director of a Play Tony Award for directing the revival of Sam Shepard's Buried Child. (which originated at Steppenwolf). Sinise won acclaim in 1988 when he starred as Tom Joad in the adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath that won a Tony Award as Best Play when the production transferred to Broadway.

Kirk Douglas starred in the original Broadway mounting; his son, Michael Douglas, produced the classic 1975 Milos Forman film which won the Oscar as Best Picture. In between, Wasserman got the stage rights back from Douglas in order to revise the show for Off-Broadway. William Devane starred in that long-running remounting, which later featured a young Jane Curtin as Nurse Ratched.