(RAHWAY, NJ) -- American Theater Group (ATG), in partnership with the Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC), will present the premiere reading of King of the Hollywood Fixers by Douglas J. Cohen as part of its free Monday Night Play Reading Series on April 14, 2025 at Hamilton Stage in Rahway. The cast will feature Briga Heelan, who most recently played Cinderella on Broadway in Once Upon a One More Time and is known for TV's Cougar Town and Ground Floor, and Robert Sella, whose many Broadway credits include Flying Over Sunset, Sideman and Cabaret. Showtime is 7:00pm.
In January 1942, M.G.M. "fixers" Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling converge at the El Rancho Hotel in Las Vegas with the studio's top star, Clark Gable, after a plane carrying his wife, actress Carole Lombard, goes missing in the nearby mountains. Charged with managing the crisis and getting Gable back to work, the two fixers clash over motives, methods, and morals—while all three fight to survive. King of the Hollywood Fixers is a compelling look at the intersections of fame, loss and personal responsibility in an era when image was paramount, and few could reveal their true selves.
The cast will also feature Larry Mitchell, known for TV's Paterno, Zero Day and HBO’s We Own This City as well as 17 Minutes, which was performed at The Barrow Group off-Broadway and the Edinburgh Fringe. Completing the cast is Mike Giese, who in addition to appearing in Triptych at The Barrow Group, has appeared on TV’s Nurse Jackie, and in multiple short and feature length films, most recently Life Hack.
Veteran actor, director, producer and teacher Chris Wells will direct the reading. With more than 40 years of experience, Wells has taught acting at NYU and is a senior faculty member at The Barrow Group (TBG). As an actor, Wells has played leading roles on Broadway, starred in world premieres by A.R. Gurney and David Ives, and played a season in British Rep. Some career highlights include Jim Farrell in the Broadway production of Titanic, numerous performances in the starring role of Bobby Childs in the Broadway production of Crazy for You, and a featured role in the 2020 independent film Ask for Jane.
A Q&A discussion with the director and cast will follow the reading. While the event is free, donations will be gratefully accepted. Hamilton Stage is located at 360 Hamilton Street in Rahway, New Jersey and is independently operated under the governance of Union County Performing Arts Center.
“ATG was proud to produce Doug Cohen’s wonderful musical The Evolution of (Henry) Mann several years ago and are thrilled to be able to provide a platform for his latest exciting work,” noted ATG Producing Artistic Director Jim Vagias.
Playwright Douglas J. Cohen is a 2021 Drama League nominee for Prospect Theater Company’s Don't Stay Safe (co-written with Cheryl L. Davis.) He received the Fred Ebb Award and two Richard Rodgers Awards for No Way To Treat A Lady (produced twice off-Broadway including The York Theater, Outer Critics Circle nomination for Best Revival) and The Gig (Manhattan Theatre Club Stage 2, Goodspeed, American Stage Company, The York Theater concert recording). Other musicals include The Big Time (book by Douglas Carter Beane, all-star 2020 McCarter Theater concert), Children's Letters to God, (Drama Desk nominee, Outstanding Lyrics), The Opposite of Sex (Williamstown), Bridges (Berkeley Playhouse) and Barnstormer (2024 Lucille Lortel 121 Project Grant recipient, Jonathan Larson Grant, Bare Bones production @ Lark Theater). His memoir, How to Survive a Killer Musical: Agony and Ecstasy on the Road to Broadway, was recently published by Applause Books. Cohen is a member of The Dramatists Guild and ASCAP.
American Theater Group (ATG), founded in 2012, produces new and classic works primarily by American playwrights with an emphasis on the development of new works and the reimagining of undeservedly neglected older ones. The company also focuses on offering quality arts-in-education programming, including its New Works/New Voices high school play writing program. ATG programming is made possible in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
