"It's most likely going to be directed by Neil LaBute himself, and we're co-producing it with Nica Burns, so it will appear in one of her theatres — either The Apollo, The Lyric or The Garrick.”

LaBute’s play premiered at New York’s Lucille Lortel Theatre in Nov. 2004 and starred Jeremy Piven, Keri Russell, Andrew McCarthy and Ashlie Atkinson. The play’s London premiere will be an entirely new production and will feature a new cast.

As with LaBute’s The Shape of Things, which featured an art student whose project shaped her boyfriend's personality, Fat Pig, about a man’s relationship with an overweight woman, also draws its drama from the way society judges a person by his or her looks.

Like Out of the Blue’s previous productions, all of them American works, Lawrence is looking for an American or international cast. Her current West End production, Shepard’s Fool for Love, stars Hollywood's Juliette Lewis.

Casting for two of Out of the Blue's other projects, revivals of Lanford Wilson's Burn This and Richard Greenberg's The American Plan, is proving more difficult. "We haven’t been able to find the right combination of actors," said Lawrence of Wilson’s 1987 drama.

The producer is more optimistic about Greenberg’s play, however, and sees possible scope for British actors in that production, which will probably be presented next year.

"I think we could get away with some British casting on it mainly because it’s set in that sort of educated upper middle class, slightly snobby, post-war American setting which is more Anglicized. It’s got that sort of New England feel about it, so we could potentially get away with it. As with all these things, it’s so important that the casting is absolutely right, so I’d rather take my time.”