World Premiere in Costa Mesa : Kaufman Will Head a Veteran Cast for SCR’s ‘At Long Last Leo’

South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa announced Friday the casting of its first world premiere of the season, “At Long Last Leo” by Mark Stein.

It will open on the Mainstage Oct. 28 for a five-week run.

In his West Coast debut, Michael Kaufman will star as Leo, an idealistic young man who returns to his suburban home with a 638-page manifesto that he has spent two years writing in the hope that it will change the world.

Others cast in major roles in Stein’s seriocomedy are Priscilla Pointer and Tom Troupe as Leo’s bewildered mother and father and Annie LaRussa as the girl Leo left behind. Anni Long will play his sister.

“At Long Last Leo” will be staged by San Francisco director Steven Albrezzi, who directed Michael Frayn’s “Benefactors” on the SCR Second Stage last season. Previews will run Oct. 21-27.

Stein, 36, who lives in Washington, is best known for such works as “Groves of Academe,” “Goodbye Moscow,” “The Dream House” and “Direct From Death Row, the Scottsboro Boys.”

Kaufman has worked for more than a decade in New York, principally off-Broadway at such companies as the Manhattan Theatre Club, the American Place Theatre and Playwrights Horizons. He has also appeared briefly in several films, among them “Desperately Seeking Susan,” “Starting Over” and “Marathon Man.”

Pointer, who played a mother at SCR in a February staged reading of “Leo” as a work-in-progress, was a charter member of the San Francisco Actors Workshop and acted in the Lincoln Center Repertory Company. Among Pointer’s many films are “Mickey and Maude” (with daughter Amy Irving), “The Falcon and the Snowman” and “Blue Velvet.” But she is perhaps best known for her TV role as Rebecca Wentworth on “Dallas.”

Troupe is a Broadway veteran who made his debut there in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” He last appeared there opposite Mia Farrow in Bernard Slade’s “Romantic Comedy.” Troupe also played Daniel Berrigan in “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine” at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Earlier this year he won a Los Angeles best-actor award for “Embraceable You,” which he also directed.

LaRussa, who is making her SCR debut, has appeared at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the New Vic Theatre, the Kenyon Festival Theatre and, in Los Angeles, at the Right Theatre, where she won an L.A. Weekly Award. She has also been in the films “Nuts” and “The Changeling.”

Long, one of the most active members of the SCR resident company, is appearing as Ann Putnam in “The Crucible.” Other recent performances include starring as Lemon in “Aunt Dan and Lemon.” And last year she had roles in “Benefactors,” “Haut Gout” and “Prelude to a Kiss.” Also cast are SCR Young Conservatory students Peter Hamilton and John Wilson.

The set will be designed by SCR resident designer Cliff Faulkner. Costumes will be designed by Walk Hicklin.

“At Long Last Leo” by Mark Stein will be at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Oct . 28 to Dec. 1, with previews beginning Oct. 21. Tickets: $19 to $26 (previews are discounted). Information: (714) 957-4033.