THEATER PREVIEW: Writer directs premiere

World premieres at the Laguna Playhouse are nothing new.

But how many have been directed by the playwright who wrote them?

That’s the situation the local theater encounters next week when Catherine Butterfield stages her new epic, “Brownstone,” opening March 29 after a few days of previews.

The production was commissioned by the playhouse.

If Butterfield’s name rings a bell, it’s understandable. Two years ago, her black comedy “The Sleeper” visited Laguna, mounted by playhouse artistic director Andrew Barnicle in a terrific West Coast premiere with a cast of nine performers doing the work of 19 in a richly effective ensemble.

Butterfield, an accomplished actress with extensive experience in regional theater, once wrote plays with an idea of performing in them, but, she says, “This is the first play I have written that I could not play any role.”

“Brownstone” is set in a Manhattan apartment house in three different eras “” the 1930s, the 1970s and the present, sort of like “Plaza Suite” in a time machine.

“There’s the pampered rich young couple of the 1930s, eager for adventure in Paris,” she explains. “There are the starry-eyed aspiring actresses of the 1970s and the chillingly self-absorbed ‘power couple’ of the new millennium.

“They all have dreams, but as events unfold, they must learn to ride the shifting waves of fortune. These walls have stories “” funny, tragic and mysteriously linked.”

Blending comedy and serious drama is nothing new for Butterfield, who used 9/11 as a backdrop for dark humor in “The Sleeper.”

This play won the 2004 Kaufman and Hart award for best new American comedy.

The author is adapting her “Sleeper” for the big screen, along with another of her works, “Under My Skin.”

Other Butterfield projects that have enjoyed critical and commercial success include “Joined at the Head” and “Life in the Trees.”

She’s been a writer-producer on the CBS dramatic series “Ghost Whisperer” and has performed her one-woman show, “Bobo’s Birthday,” at New York’s American Place Theater.

Of “Brownstone,” she remarks, “The play has themes of lost illusions and the disappointments of age. It’s kind of a memory piece in a way, a bittersweet dramatic comedy.”

Previews of “Brownstone” will be Tuesday through Friday of next week, with opening night scheduled for March 29.

The show then runs Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. with weekend matinees at 2 p.m.

There also will be two Thursday matinees, March 27 and April 10, at 2 p.m., as well as a Sunday performance April 20 at 7 p.m.

The show closes April 27, and reservations may be obtained by calling the playhouse at (949) 497-0787.