Olympia Dukakis to play King Lear

Actress Olympia Dukakis is to play King Lear in a New York reading of Shakespeare's tragedy directed by Austin Pendleton to benefit Hero Theatre. The cast will also include Louis Cancelmi, Lynn Cohen, Dashiell Eaves, Paul Lazar and George Morfogen, as well as Elisa Bocanegra, Seth Duerr, Korey Jackson, Albert Jones, Thomas Kopache, James Martinez, Desiree Matthews, Anya Migdal, Liam Mitchell and Bobby Plasencia, the theater said Monday. The reading is to take place May 21 at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre/Laura Pels Theatre in Manhattan. Dukakis is chair of Hero Theatre's advisory board. Her one-night-only star turn in "King Lear" is part of the theater's fundraising efforts to present its first full-scale production, a world-premiere of a new translation of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters" by Tatyana Tolstaya and Migdalia Cruz.