Bening to take play to New York

Three-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening, who has kept her stage legs limber with periodic roles in L.A., will face New York theater audiences next spring for the first time in 20 years in “The Female of the Species,” a satiric comedy by Australian writer Joanna Murray-Smith.

The show, inspired by an episode seven years ago in which Germaine Greer briefly was taken hostage in her British country home by a young female student, features Bening as a feminist author who gets held to account for some of her influential ideas. The American premiere will run Feb. 13 to March 16, 2008, at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, directed by Tony winner Michael Mayer.

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Mike Boehm