American Theater Group, in partnership with the Union County Performing Arts Center, will present a reading of Douglas J. Cohen's King of the Hollywood Fixers in April.

Part of the free Monday Night Play Reading Series, the April 14 reading will begin at 7 PM on the Hamilton Stage in Rahway, New Jersey.

The cast will feature Briga Heelan (Once Upon a One More Time, Cougar Town), Robert Sella (Flying Over Sunset, Cabaret), Larry Mitchell (Paterno, Zero Day), and Mike Giese (Triptych, Nurse Jackie). Chris Wells will direct.

The new work takes place in January 1942 as MGM "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.

A Q&A with the director and cast will follow the reading.

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 and The Gig. Other works include The Big Time (book by Douglas Carter Beane), Children's Letters to God, The Opposite of Sex, Bridges, and Barnstormer.

While the event is free, donations will be accepted. Hamilton Stage is located at 360 Hamilton Street in Rahway, New Jersey. Visit UCPAC.org.