In a last minute switch, a staged reading of Tom Stoppard’s award-winning play on love, art and reality, The Real Thing will replace the previously announced Travesties as Barrington Stage Company as their contribution to the 2012 WordXWord Festival. The announcement was made in downtown Pittsfield by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, and Managing Director Tristan Wilson. The company is undertaking the work in partnership with the 2012 WordXWord Festival.

Directed by Julianne Boyd and starring BSC Associate Artist Christopher Innvar (The Crucible and A Streetcar Named Desire) The Real Thing will be presented on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage (30 Union Street, Pittsfield) on Monday, August 13 at 7pm. Tickets are $10-$15.

Update: 8/8/12: The Real Thing stars BSC Associate Artist Christopher Innvar (The Crucible and A Streetcar Named Desire) as Henry, Caralyn Kozlowski (BSC’s The Shape of Things and Three Viewings) as Annie, Tasha Lawrence as Charlotte, Markus Potter as Max, Emily Taplin Boyd (BSC’s A Streetcar Named Desire and 10×10 Play Festival) as Debbie, and Mark J. Sullivan as Billy/Brodie. Bill Grace is stage manager.

Stoppard’s two-time Tony Award-winner (Best Play, 1984; Best Play Revival, 2000), The Real Thing is an intellectually and emotionally engaging backstage comedy centering on Henry, an articulate and romantically idealistic playwright whose second wife is trying to merge worthy political causes with her art as an actress. Henry’s concepts of love, marriage and fidelity are tested as well as his ability to write a play filled with honest emotions.

Christopher Innvar (Henry) is currently in the Tony Award-winning revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. He is a BSC Associate Artist, having worked with the company for the past nine seasons in The Game (2003), Cyrano (2004), The Importance of Being Earnest (2005), Ring ‘Round the Moon (2006), Private Lives (2008), A Streetcar Named Desire (2009), Absurd Person Singular and The Crucible (2010). Innvar has directed the Stage 2 productions of The Collyer Brothers/Period Piece (2008) and The Whipping Man (2010). His Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include: The Fantasticks (El Gallo), the title role in Floyd Collins, A New Brain (Roger), Les Miserables(Javert), Victor/Victoria (King Marchan), The Threepenny Opera (Tiger Brown), 110 in the Shade (File), The Boys in the Band (Larry), The Witch of Edmonton, and The People in the Picture. Innvar has played leading roles at regional theatres around the country including: Steppenwolf, McCarter Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, and D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre.

Caralyn Kozlowski (Annie) At BSC: The Shape of Things, Three Viewings. Most recent: Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare Theatre Company; Michael Von Siebenburg Melts through the Floorboards, Humana Festival. Ten leading roles in eight seasons with the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and an upcoming appearance in this winter’s Trelawney of the Wells. Appearances Off-Broadway include Mrs. Warren’s Profession and The Milliner. Film and TV: Law & Orders, Numbers, Six Degrees, All My Children, The Guiding Light and Practical Magic.

Tasha Lawrence (Charlotte) Theatre: David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People, Sam Hunter’s The Whale, Kieth Reddin’s Human Error, Daisy Foote’s Bhutan, Dangerous Liaisons, Craig Wright’s The Pavilion, Betrayal, Bad Dates, The Director, June Moon, He She Them, George F. Walker’s Suburban Motel. Broadway: Wilder, Wilder, Wilder (Tony nomination), Proof (national tour) Good People (M.T.C) Film and Television: Hangnail (Slamdance, 2011) Romance and Cigarettes (John Turturro), all the Law & Orders, Third Watch (recurring), Deadline, Kevin Hill, Royal Pains, All My Children, Loving and The Line, (Gemini, ACTRA nominations, best actress). Tasha can be seen this fall in The Whale at Playwrights Horizons.

Markus Potter (Max) Off Broadway: A Perfect Future (World Premiere-Cherry Lane Theatre), Professor Bernhardi (Marvell Rep/Barrow Group) Regional: Biff in Death of a Salesman (opposite Christopher Lloyd) Weston Playhouse, As You Like It (Weston Playhouse), Edgar in King Lear (Denver Center), Laertes in Hamlet and the world premieres of Roads That Lead Here and The New New (Guthrie Theatre), Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Long Wharf Theatre), U.S. premiere of The York Realist (Studio Theatre, D.C.), Leading roles in productions at American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Chautauqua Theatre Company, California Shakespeare, Great Lakes Theatre Festival and many others.

Emily Taplin Boyd (Debbie) returns to Barrington Stage, having previously appeared in the premiere 10×10 New Play Festival and A Streetcar Named Desire, as well as readings of Mrs. Lincoln’s Seance and The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later. Off-Broadway she has appeared in readings for Marvell Repertory, and around New York she has performed in Six Seeds: The Persephone Project at The Tank, as well as in What the Butler Saw (Geraldine Barclay) at the Gallery Players, among others. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and Bill Esper’s two-year Meisner program at his Studio.

Mark J. Sullivan (Billy/Brodie) NY: The Keen Company: The Dining Room (Drama Desk Award), Symphony Space: Surface To Air, New York Theatre Workshop: Vertebrae. Regional: Shakespeare Theatre Company: The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Woolly Mammoth Theatre: After Ashley, Big Death and Little Death; Folger Shakespeare Theatre: Measure for Measure, Melissa Arctic; Studio Theatre: Cripple of Inishmaan, The Shape of Things; The Old Globe Theatre: The Whipping Man, The Sisters Rosensweig; The Kennedy Center, Rorschach Theatre, Forum Theatre, LA Theatreworks, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville.

Tom Stoppard (Playwright) worked as a freelance journalist while writing radio plays, a novel (Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon), and the first of his plays to be staged in England, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, winner of the 1968 Tony Award for Best Play. His subsequent plays include The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Jumpers, Travesties (Tony Award), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (with André Previn), Night and Day, The Real Thing (Tony Award), Hapgood, Arcadia (Olivier Award, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and Tony Award nomination), Indian Ink, and The Invention of Love. The 2006 American premiere of Mr. Stoppard’s trilogy, The Coast of Utopia, at Lincoln Center Theater won seven Tony Awards. Rock ’n’ Roll premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in June 2006 and on Broadway in November 2007. Mr. Stoppard’s translations and adaptations include Lorca’s House of Bernarda Alba, Schnitzler’s Undiscovered Country and Dalliance, Nestroy’s On the Razzle, Václav Havel’s Largo Desolato, Rough Crossing (based on Ferenc Molnár’s Play in the Castle), and Gérald Sibleyras’ Heroes.

Julianne Boyd (Director) founded the Barrington Stage Company in January, 1995. Her directorial credits at BSC include this season’s critically acclaimed productions of Dr. Ruth, All the Way and All My Sons; The Best of Enemies, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Streetcar Named Desire, Follies, the world premiere musical The Game, based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Mack and Mabel, A Little Night Music, Cyrano de Bergerac and The Importance of Being Earnest. In 1997 she directed BSC’s smash hit production of Cabaret, which won six Boston Theatre Critics Awards and transferred to the Hasty Pudding Theatre in Cambridge for an extended run. Ms. Boyd conceived and directed the Broadway musical Eubie!, a show based on the music of Eubie Blake which starred Gregory Hines and garnered three Tony nominations. She also co-conceived and directed (with Joan Micklin Silver) the award-winning Off-Broadway musical revue A…My Name Is Alice (Outer Critics’ Award) and its sequel A…My Name Is Still Alice. From 1992 to 1998 Ms. Boyd served as President of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the national union representing professional directors and choreographers in the U.S.