Heather Graham has dropped out of the upcoming Neil LaBute comedy The Money Shot due to a late-breaking opportunity to begin work on a passion project, with Elizabeth Reaser stepping in to take her place.
Directed by Terry Kinney, whose production of LaBute’s Reasons to Be Pretty moved to Broadway, the play also stars Gia Crovatin, Callie Thorne and Frederick Weller.
The MCC Theater Off-Broadway production will begin previews at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Sept. 4, with official opening set for Sept. 22. The limited engagement runs through Oct. 12.
The Money Shot is described as “a comedy about ambition, art, status and sex in an era — and an industry — where very little is sacred and almost nothing is taboo.”
Reaser and Weller will play Karen and Steve, two movie stars despairing over the long dry spell since their last hits. Plum roles in a film by a hot European director could boost their profiles, depending on how far they are willing to go. Together with their respective offscreen partners, played by Thorne and Crovatin, they meet the night before filming a big scene to thrash out what’s at stake.
LaBute is Playwright in Residence at MCC, which has world-premiered eight of his stage works.
Juilliard graduate Reaser has appeared in arcs on Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Wife, and onscreen in The Twilight Saga, Liberal Arts and Young Adult. Her last Off-Broadway role was in 2012 in How I Learned to Drive.
