Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, Vermont is adding a surprise to its Fall Season.

Funny Feeling, a new drama by New York playwright Judith Keller, about the moral ambiguities of art, sex and the law, will be produced as a staged reading in Chandler Music Hall Saturday, October 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Veteran director, writer and producer Joe Cacaci, Executive Producer of the CBS prime time series The Education of Max Bickford starring Richard Dreyfuss and Marcia Gay Harden, and director of dozens of regional and commercial theater productions, including many world premieres, is currently rehearsing four noted actors in New York for next month’s Chandler show.

The Funny Feeling leading lady, Elizabeth Franz, won the country’s highest theatre honor, the Antoinette Perry Award (the “Tony”) for her role as Linda Loman in the 1999 New York production of Death of a Salesman, and Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award, Boston's Eliot Norton Award and Los Angeles' Ovation Award for her performance of the role on tour. She has also been nominated two other times for a Tony, for the Broadway hit Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1983 and for Mornings at Seven in 2002, has received an Obie and has received the Dramatist Guild Fund’s Lifetime Achievement in the Theater award. In 2004 and 2005, she appeared at the Royal National Theatre in London in the Sam Shepard play Buried Child. Ms. Franz has starred in numerous films and Off-Broadway and regional theater productions, and as a character actor on television, she is known for her roles in Roseanne, Another World, As the World Turns, Gilmore Girls, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case, Dear John and Judging Amy.

In Funny Feeling Elizabeth Franz plays Lucille Harrison whose life spirals quickly downward when photographs she has shot of her young granddaughter dancing around naked after a bath are turned over to the local police by the photo processor who suspects child pornography. It isn’t long before events and reactions force Lucille into intensely charged relationships with her family, her lover, her co-workers and her community. Lucille’s dilemma forces her, her family and her community to confront fundamental issues around personal liberty, privacy, freedom of expression and censorship..

Appearing with Elizabeth Franz in the Chandler performance are Ray Abruzzo, Ylfa Edelstein and James DeMarse. Mr. Abruzzo is known to many as Little Carmine Lupertazzi for four seasons on HBO’s The Sopranos, and is highly regarded for his many contributions to Los Angeles theater as an actor and director, and for his extensive television repertoire: as a regular in NYPD Blue and The Practice, and in guest appearances for Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI:NY, House, L.A. Law, Dynasty, Night Court, and Boston Legal.

Edelstein’s stage career in New York and in regional performances include Joanne in Arthur Kopit’s Because He Can, and starring roles in plays by Strindberg, Tennesee Williams, Shakespeare, and John Pielmeier. She was a regular in the television series The Hoop Life and The Education of Max Bickford and has appeared in Law & Order, Law & Order: S.V.U., Law & Order: C.I. and Copshop.

DeMarse has starred on Broadway in Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate and in last season’s year-long run off- Broadway of The Orphan Cycle. His TV and film credits include Side by Each, Soldier’s Heart, What Makes Alex Tick, The Baxter, Law & Order: C.I., In the Dark, Law & Order: S.V.U., The Sopranos, Law & Order, Ferris Bueller, Grace Under Pressure and Custodian of the People.

Funny Feeling director Joe Cacaci has written and produced numerous movies for television, served as Executive Producer on two prime time dramatic series: The Hoop Life for SHOWTIME and The Education of Max Bickford (CBS). He directed the pilot of the PBS series Copshop and co-created the CBS prime time series The Trials of Rosie O’Neill, and has directed dozens of regional and commercial theater productions, including his own plays, as well as many world premieres. Charles Durning, Edward Asner, Richard Dreyfuss, Dan Lauria and Wendie Malick are among the many actors who have performed under his direction. Cacaci is a founder of the Berkshire Playwrights Lab which presents new plays through readings and workshops.

"I admire the daring spirit and sensitivity with which Judith Keller has crafted this compelling script," Cacaci said of Funny Feeling earlier this week. "Her unflinching willingness to plumb the depths and take it to the next level is a perfect match for what I understand to be a very perceptive audience in Central Vermont." Cacaci has presented the play in a private reading but this will be its first appearance in a public theater. He added, "The play deals with a timely and provocative subj ect, one that is rarely explored in the theatre. I know that with this fine cast, the play will indeed progress from here. I 'm very happy that the Chandler audience will be the first to help launch it."

Reservations can be made by calling the Chandler box office at 802/728-6464.